Coming to Understand
by Snakequeen-in-Norway
Summary: Sequel to Coming to Know! Basically, the rest of the story. How have the next four years played out because of the events of CTC and CTK? How does Harry view events at the end of his 6th and 7th years now? How does all of it connect? Read to find out!
1. Chapter 1: Betrayal

**Author's Note: Whooot! I told you I'd do this one eventually, and here, after so much time you may have given up hope, it is! **

**It may take me a little bit to really get back into this world, which is part of what this chapter is about.**

**This chapter has a lot of paraphrased and summarized bits from the actual book, as well as some lines which are copied verbatim. That is necessary to set it up, as I am still keeping everything as canon as possible besides what is necessarily changed by the alternate events of the story. It does assume that you know all the other stuff that goes on that I just gloss over or don't mention. Basically, if it isn't mentioned as changed, assume it happened more or less the way it did in the books.**

**The formatting of the narrative will be a little different for this installment. Time won't exactly move linearly the whole time. The best way to see what I mean is just to read. So…read! ;)**

**-SQ**

**Disclaimer: It may have been a while, but I still don't own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter One: Betrayal**

It had not happened.

"_We've got a problem, Snape."_

It could not have happened.

"_Severus…"_

There had to be some mistake.

"_Severus…please…"_

Please, let it have been a mistake.

"_Avada Kedavra!"_

The scene kept replaying itself in his head as Harry sprinted through the corridors, dodging flying curses and bodies, his trainers slick with blood, following his Potions master.

It didn't make _sense_. Dumbledore couldn't be dead. Snape couldn't have killed him. Snape was _on__their__side_. He was a double agent, he was really working with the Order, with Dumbledore. With Harry. He clenched his fists and willed his legs to move faster. He would catch up to Snape and demand an explanation. Surely the man had one. He had to have one. Because if he didn't…that would mean that everything, the entire past four years, had been a lie.

Harry was outside now, tearing across the inky grounds. The night air ripped at his lungs and he stumbled, caught himself, and ran on. His chest was on fire as he sprinted past Hagrid's cabin, where Hagrid himself was trying to stop the Death Eaters from escaping through the gates.

Something hit Harry in the small of the back and this time he did go down. He hit the ground and lights danced before his eyes; he could feel blood spouting from both nostrils. Lurching to his feet he pointed his wand toward the brother and sister Death Eaters advancing on him and shouted,_ "__Impedimenta!__"_ Miraculously he hit one of them and they fell to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. Without waiting to see what happened to them Harry continued after Snape.

"Snape!" he shouted at the retreating figure. _"__Snape!__"_

"Turn back, Potter!" Snape yelled.

"No!" Harry shouted after him. "What are you doing? !"

"What does it look like, Potter?" snapped Snape in a voice he hadn't used with Harry in years.

"But you're not really a Death Eater!" he said desperately.

"Are you sure about that?"

Harry stumbled as though he had been physically struck. "Tell me you didn't mean it!" he yelled, clutching his side. "Tell me he's not dead!"

Snape stopped and turned to face Harry. "He's dead," he said harshly. "And I assure you, I meant it."

"_Why?"_

"Because," sneered the Potions master, "a good servant always follows his master's orders."

"It's not true!" shouted Harry.

"Use your brain, Potter," Snape snarled. "What do _you_ think is true?"

Harry let out a bellow of pain and rage and pointed his wand at Snape. _"__Stupify!__"_

He missed; the jet of red light soared past Snape's head; Snape shouted, _"__Run,__Draco!__"_ and turned.

"_No!__"_ snarled Harry, charging after them once more. _"__Cruc__—"_

But Snape blocked the curse and Harry found himself knocked off his feet once more. Behind him Hagrid's house had gone up in flames. Not even bothering to stand fully, Harry stayed on his knees and tried again.

"_Cruc—"_

Snape parried the curse again, sneering.

"No Unforgivable Curses from you, Potter! You haven't got what it takes—"

"_Incarc__—"_ Harry roared, but he was again deflected.

"Turn back, Potter!" Snape yelled again, grabbing Draco and running toward the gates once more. "Give up! You have no chance!"

"Fight back!" Harry screamed at Snape's retreating back. "Fight back you cowardly—"

"Get out of here, Potter!" shouted Snape roughly. "And stop talking about things you don't understand!"

"_Stupe—"_

"You're forgetting everything I taught you about Occlumency!" said Snape, deflecting the curse once more. "Keep your mouth shut and your mind open! One of these days your luck is going to fail you and you are going to find yourself dead! Now _come_!" he shouted at the huge Death Eater who was currently fighting Hagrid several feet behind Harry. "It is time to be gone, before the Ministry turns up—"

"_Impedi—"_

Harry's curse was cut off by a wave of pain more intense than anything he'd ever felt in his life, except perhaps when Voldemort had actually touched him, only this wasn't just in his scar, but throughout his entire body. He fell to the ground, writhing; he was going to die…

"_No!__"_ he heard Snape's voice cry, and the pain ceased as suddenly as it had begun, leaving Harry limp and panting on the ground. Snape was still shouting, something about orders, but Harry's brain was still too muddled with pain and grief to comprehend. What he did understand was that Snape was trying to leave again, and Harry had to stop him. In that instant, he cared not whether he lived or died. Pushing himself to his feet he staggered blindly toward Snape, the man who had taken him under his wing, the man who had risked his life to protect him, the man who had made the time he had to spend with the Dursleys as brief as possible, and had made that brief time more bearable than Harry had ever thought it could be, the man who had taught him how to brew potions, had taught how to block his mind from Voldemort, had taught him the some of the most advanced things he knew about Defense Against the Dark Arts, the man who had taught him what it felt like to be cared for and loved… The man he now hated as much as he hated Voldemort himself—

"_Sectum—!"_

This curse, too, was repelled. Harry was by now mere feet from Snape; he could see the man's face clearly for the first time since the tower. He was no longer sneering or jeering; his face was a combination of rage and something unreadable. Mustering all his powers of concentration, Harry thought, _Levi__—_

"No, Potter!" screamed Snape. There was a loud BANG and Harry found himself on the ground again; his wand flew out of his hand and landed useless several feet away. Hagrid and Fang were yelling and yowling nearby, the flames crackling around htem, but all Harry could see was Snape looming over him.

"You dare use my own spells against me, Potter? You think I do not know how to counter them? Have you not yet learned to learn from your mistakes? _No!_" Snape shot a hex at Harry's wand, which he had made a grab for, and it disappeared into the darkness.

"Kill me then," panted Harry. He was too full of rage and hurt for there to be any room for fear. "You've been working for him the whole time! I _trusted_ you and you _lied_ to me! I should have known, there were so many signs! Hermione told me not to trust the person who had written those spells in that book! You _bastard_! Kill me like you killed him, you coward—"

"DON'T—" screamed Snape, and his face was suddenly demented, inhuman, as though he was in as much pain as Fang, stuck in Hagrid's burning house behind them—"CALL ME COWARD!"

He whipped his wand through the air and Harry was thrown backward so forcefully that he lost all sense of direction. He heard but did not see a screech and a rush of wings above them as Buckbeack the hippogriff rushed at Snape, slashing him with his claws. By the time Harry's vision had cleared and he had managed to regain his feet Snape and the other Death Eaters had fled beyond the gate and Disapparated.

The rest of that day went by in a blur: finding Hagrid, going back to the castle, reading the note inside the locket and realizing that the horcrux that Dumbledore had died to help him obtain was a fake, and explaining again and again and again that Dumbledore was dead, that Snape had killed him, that Snape had killed Dumbledore. Snape whom he had trusted, Snape in whom he had confided, with Snape whom he had even lived briefly before it had become too dangerous to the man's "work for the Order", Snape whom he had come to think of almost as a father, whom he had repeatedly defended to his skeptical, disbelieving friends. Snape had lied. Snape had betrayed them. Snape had, all along, been working for Voldemort.

**AN: And that was Chapter 1 of Coming to Understand! I hope you enjoyed it. I know it wasn't particularly long, but it needed to end there. This story will now be part of my update cycle, which means that it will be updated roughly every two weeks (?) give or take (probably give) a few days. I'd really like to know that this sequence/universe/whatever still has readers, so please review if you have anything at all to say, even just a word or two (though longer reviews are even more awesome ;) ) Thank you!**

**Also, this is completely un-fanfic and un-Harry Potter related, but I have posted an online audition for the _Glee__Project_. Okay, so so have many, MANY other people, but why not, right? It can't hurt. If you're interested in seeing (and liking) it it's on the _Glee__Project_ website under the username Snake-Queen. I know this pretty much does away with any anonymity I have on here, at least for anyone who view the video, but the thing's online for anyone who wants to to see anyway, so…**

**Check it out?**

**-SQ**


	2. Chapter 2: The Double Double Agent

**Author's Note: Wow, did I really get this done today? Boss! I sat down to work on it yesterday & realized I had a LOT of planning to do before I could actually write it. The thing is, there are kind of two plots going on simultaneously. There's the 'present' plot, which picks up at Dumbledore's death & moves forward chronologically until the end of the series, and then there is the plot that covers the time between the start of the 4th book & the end of the 6th, which will be told through flashbacks that are _not_ presented in chronological order, but rather as the remembering of them relates to the events in the 'present' time plot. If that sounds confusing, it kind of is, but I hope it won't be as confusing in the actual presentation as it is in the explanation. This is also not a very happy fic, especially in the 'present' time frame. Some of the memories will be happy ones, some sad, some dramatic, but the circumstances which lead to the remembering will almost always be angsty. This chapter especially turned out pretty dark because it is a Severus POV chapter. We won't get that much of Severus's POV in this story, because the plot we are following is Harry's. This might be the only chapter that is entirely in his POV. I rather like what I've written here, emotionally and simply linguistically, and I hope you do too. Now I will end this far too long author's note and let you read the damn story, lol.**

**-SQ**

**Disclaimer: As much as I feel that HP is "my" true fandom, it's not actually mine**

**Chapter Two: The Double-Double-Agent**

Severus had returned to his house in Spinner's end as quickly as possible after the meeting at Malfoy Manor, which was not nearly quickly enough for his tastes. Besides the obvious fact that he despised what his former friends and current necessary associates were doing and what they stood for, he also found their personal company exceedingly annoying and dull. Never a social man by nature, Severus was forced to make cordial small talk with people like Yaxley and Dolohov while enduring the piercing and suspicious gaze of Bellatrix Lestrange. While Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy were the only people in Severus's current association that he actually found to be somewhat tolerable company, Narcissa's elder sister neither liked nor trusted him, and the feeling was mutual; Bellatrix Lestrange was even more off her rocker than her cousin Sirius had been. Not that this made her any less dangerous; on the contrary, she was one of the few Death Eaters that Severus had any respect for, if not in character, at least in skill.

Severus sighed and rubbed his temples, where the headache he had been fighting all day was quickly building into another full-blown migraine. They had increased, both in frequency and intensity, since his reentry into the Dark Lord's service, and even more so since the end of last year. Not surprising, he supposed, when one considered that he had to watch former colleagues being tortured and killed above him while they pleaded for him to help them. He couldn't have of course; in saving one life he would have betrayed his true loyalties to the Dark Lord and so sacrificed many more lives, including the one he had dedicated the past sixteen years of his life to preserving: that of Harry Potter.

If Severus had been hoping to alleviate his migraine, his current train of thought was not helping. Thinking about Harry hurt as much as thinking about Lily. And since thinking about one of them inevitably lead to thinking about the other, he was ensured of a double dose of anguish unless he steered clear of both topics. Usually, what with the busy schedule his double-double-agent balancing act required and the necessary discipline of his mind at nearly all times, he did a fairly good job of it; it was only in moments like these, when he remembered the expression of intense concentration on Lily's face as she brewed a perfect headache potion for class, or how Harry used to bring him a cup of tea and sit with him talking about nothing in particular until his unconsciously tense muscles relaxed and the pain in his head receded more than it ever did when treated with potions, that the memories, and the pain associated with them, were brought back in full force.

Severus had always cared about Harry's life, but he hadn't always cared about the boy himself. In fact, for the first thirteen and a half years of his life, eleven of which had occurred before Severus had even set eyes on the child, he had hated him. How could he not? The son of the woman he loved by the man he hated; a living symbol of everything that was wrong with his life.

All of that had changed when the boy had fallen deathly ill while serving detention with Severus in the middle of his third year. There was something about saving someone's life, not by muttering a counter spell or averting danger from afar, or even of risking his own life in order to protect another's, but of kneeling beside them and counting their every breath as they fought their way back from death's door, that fundamentally changed one's relationship with that person. Especially when you discovered things about them that reminded you unsettlingly of yourself.

Harry had ended up living with him for most of the following summer. It hadn't been an easy time, but Severus was sure that if you asked either of them they would say that they didn't regret it. Well, Harry would have said that before Severus had apparently defected to the Dark side, murdered Albus Dumbledore, and proven himself not only a murder, but a traitor and a liar both to the Order of the Phoenix and to Harry.

If Severus had to pick the one thing he regretted most about his current position it would be this. Harry, the boy who, had circumstances been different, could have been Severus's son, _should_ have been Severus's son, had, over the course of the past four and a half years, become like a son to the embittered potions master. He knew the boy's friends didn't understand it, hell, he wasn't sure he and Harry understood it, but there you had it; some things just didn't make sense. It did make a kind of sense if you thought about it though; both of them had been lonely, abandoned boys, abused and neglected, who had found solace and solidarity at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The fact that this description also fit the boy who had grown up to become the Dark Lord did not escape Severus's notice. Severus sometimes wondered if he and Tom Riddle had had someone to be to them what Severus had been to Harry if they would have turned out differently.

That was all over now, though. Severus's and Riddle's stories were written, and, though Harry knew almost all of Riddle's, he now held a deprecating and necessary misconception of Severus's.

Severus had known from the moment his relationship with Harry had changed that his role as a spy would get in the way. And sure enough, it had taken less than a year for him to break the second real promise he had made to the boy.

*****CTU*****

_Severus watched from the window as the students climbed into the thestral-drawn carriages that would take them to Hogsmeade station. In less than an hour Hogwarts would be empty of all persons below the age of twenty-five. In less than two Severus would be on his way to pledge his loyalty once again to the monster who had killed the only person he had ever loved._

"_Professor?"_

_Severus was pulled out of his musings by a familiar voice. He looked to his left and saw a short, scrawny boy with messy black hair and glasses rocking back and forth from his toes to his heels._

"_Potter, what are you doing here? You're going to miss the train."_

"_I just…I wanted to say goodbye," said Harry, fidgeting but not taking his piercing green eyes from his professor._

"_Well, goodbye then, Harry," said Severus._

_The boy didn't budge, except to rock more vigorously. _

"_Cease that obnoxious movement at once," said Severus._

_Harry stopped. "When are you coming to get me, Professor?"_

"_Pardon?"_

"_You know, from the Dursleys'. It's a week, right, that I have to stay?"_

_Severus sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. In all the excitement about Diggory's death and the Dark Lord's return and Barty Crouch Jr. receiving the dementor's kiss his previous arrangements with Potter has slipped his mind. "I won't be coming to get you, Harry," he said finally._

_Harry 's expectant look turned to one of confusion. "Huh?"_

"'_Huh' is not a word, Mr. Potter," said Severus._

"_I mean, what do you mean, you won't be coming to get me?"_

"_I mean what I say, Potter. My plans have changed."_

"_But you promised."_

"_I know I did."_

"_Then why—?"_

"_The headmaster has other plans it seems." He had discussed it with Albus, but apparently his role as a spy was more important than his role as Harry Potter's caretaker._

"_What kind of plans?"_

"_Secret ones."_

"_Don't you think I have the right to know, seeing as they're making you break your promise to me?"_

"_It is not my choice to break my promise to you, Harry," said Severus. "The world is not fair and things seldom go according to plan."_

"_Do you think you have to tell me that?"_

_The boy had a point._

"_You know I used to be a Death Eater, I have the Dark Mark to prove it." Harry nodded. "Well, Professor Dumbledore finds this particular fact to be an asset to us in our current situation."_

"_He wants you to be a spy?"_

"_Perhaps."_

"_Isn't that dangerous?"_

"_You are hardly the one to give lectures on not doing dangerous things, Potter," said Severus with a raised brow._

"_I __didn__'__t _choose _to __do __any __of __those __things,__" __protested __Harry._

"_You didn't choose not to do them either."_

"_Is this what Dumbledore—er—Professor Dumbledore meant when he asked if you were ready?"_

"_It is."_

"_You said your being a Death Eater before is an asset to 'us'. Who is 'us'?"_

"_Enough questions, Harry, you're going to miss the train."_

"_I don't want to go back to the Dursleys'. I want to go with you."_

"_You can't always get what you want, Potter."_

"_But—"_

_Severus held up a hand. "You know what I have been tasked to do, at least the gist of it; it would be rather impossible to accomplish with Harry Potter residing at my house." His expression softened slightly. "I will be checking up on you though. Perhaps not in any way that you can tell, but I promise, your aunt and uncle will be kept in check while you are staying with them."_

"_How—?"_

"_I have my ways."_

_Harry answered Severus's mysterious smile with a smile of his own. "I'll miss you," he said shyly._

"_There might be moments when I slightly regret the absence of your highly energetic presence as well," replied Severus._

_Harry made a sound that would have been a laugh if there hadn't been so much weight and sadness to it. "'Bye, Professor."_

"_Goodbye, Harry," said Severus. "I do regret not being able to keep my promise to you."_

"_I know you do," said Harry. "See you next year." And, with a small wave, he hurried off in the direction of the grounds._

"_Indeed," said Severus. "See you next year."_

*****CTU*****

So much pain and hope and trust encompassed in one small boy, thought Severus, and he couldn't help but wonder what the breaking of that trust, no matter how necessary it had been, had done to the man that boy was too fast becoming.

**AN: So…yes…that was kind of dark. This is how the presentation of the majority of the chapters will go; a scene in 'present' time going into a memory which fills in a missing piece of Harry and Severus's story between the end of the last fic & the beginning of this one. The major planning that I did yesterday consisted mostly of pairing 'present' time events and situations with the memories they trigger. Again, these memories will be presented out of order. A fairly good recollection of the events of the last 4 books, especially the 7th, will probably be useful in reading this fic. I'm having a lot of fun with it stylistically already (though 'fun' may not be the best word to describe this fic). It's also currently my only in-progress HP fic, and, as I stated in my disclaimer, I feel most connected to the HP fandom, especially in fanfiction.**

**Much love to you all for reading this. I would _love_ to hear your opinions on the story, as, though it is a continuation of the story I started with CTC & developed with CTK, in style and process it is quite different from those fics. Thank you again for your time and your words (wow, I'm feeling eloquent today).**

**-SQ**


	3. Chapter 3: Unpacking Memories

**Author's Note: Gah! WAY too long without an update! I was completely 100% going to work on this over Thanksgiving break…& then I realized I hadn't brought the 7th book w/ me to my grandmother's house & I needed it to write the chapter. . I got back from break yesterday, & promptly had a sleepover w/ my friend during which I watched Team Starkid's MAMD & then got caught up reading stuff on tvtropes. Then today I realized I still had hw to do for tomorrow. But you don't really care about that, you care that the chapter is _finally_ written and up, even if I did have the sacrifice going to be earlier to do it. (Who am I kidding anyway? Like I would have gone to bed early in the first place…)**

**-SQ**

**Disclaimer: Because without it you would totally assume I owned Harry Potter…**

**Chapter Three: Unpacking Memories**

Harry resettled himself onto haunches in front of his school trunk and reinserted his hand into the mess inside; rather more carefully this time after something unseen and very sharp has sent him running to the bathroom sink. Most of the things he was pulling out of the bottom of the trunk, which had not seen the light of day for several years, were pure junk; broken quills, bits of crumpled parchment, empty inkwells, and the like; but other things he found brought back specific memories of his time at Hogwarts. There was an old, bent badge still bearing the alternating legends _Support __CEDRIC __DIGGORY_ and _POTTER __STINKS_; the Sneak-o-scope Ron had given him for his thirteenth birthday, now with a large crack down one side; several textbooks and a few books Hermione had given him as presents; his collection of chocolate frog cards, which was sizable, but nothing compared to Ron's; and a large, heavy gold locket containing a note signed R.A.B. Putting aside the locket with a sense of bitterness, Harry reached into the trunk again and felt his finger graze against the sharp edge which had cut him earlier. He drew the object out and found it to be a fragment of glass. Not just any fragment of glass, but a piece of the enchanted mirror his godfather Sirius, now dead, had given him a year and a half ago. He stared hard into the fragment of mirror, but only his own green eye was reflected back at him. Laying aside the useless bit of glass, Harry tried also to push away the bitterness and regret that rose in reaction to the locket and the mirror. Angrily he plunged his hand once more into the heap of belongings still sitting in his trunk, but the next item he extracted did nothing to quell the unwelcome memories. It was a photo album Hagrid had once given him, filled with pictures of people he had lost, people he was afraid of losing, and people he had never gotten the chance to meet.

Harry shook his head in annoyance. He didn't have time to dwell on every single thing he took out of his trunk; he needed to be ready to leave when the Order of the Phoenix arrived to collect him. They would be on a tight schedule, he knew, and it was important that everything go according to plan, even if he didn't know exactly what that plan was. At least he knew more than he had known two summers ago, when he had first learned of the existence of the clandestine group working against Voldemort's rise to power. To say that he had not been pleased at being kept in the dark would be a gross understatement. His enraged shouts had been heard throughout the house; by Fred and George Weasley, who had been upstairs attempting to listen in on the adults by means of their Extendable Ears, by Ginny Weasley, and, rather unfortunately, by Severus Snape, who had stopped by to give a top secret report to said adults. (And, Harry had suspected at the time, to check up on him. Well, he still suspected it, but, he thought darkly, he knew that Snape's reasons for "checking up on" him were rather different than he had imagined back then.)

*****CTU*****

_Fred and George, who had obviously just passed their Apparation tests and were all too eager to prove it, appeared with twin cracks in the middle of Ron and Harry's bedroom and beamed at Harry, who was still scowling heavily._

"_Hello, Harry. We thought we heard your dulcet tones."_

"_You don't want to bottle up your anger like that, Harry, let it all out. There might be a couple of people fifty miles away who didn't hear you."_

_Harry, in his current mood, was not amused by the twins' humor, nor particularly interested in Ginny's report about the kitchen door being Imperturbed. Fred's mention of Snape, however, did catch his attention._

"_Snape? Is he here?" Harry hadn't seen Snape since term had ended. Which really hadn't been that long ago, but when you lived with the Dursleys time moved at a monumentally slow pace. In fact, the last conversation Harry had had with Snape had involved the Potions Master explaining to him why he could no longer go and live with him for most of the summer as had been the previous plan._

_Harry tuned out of his own thoughts and back into the conversation around him in time to ear Fred say idly, "git."_

"_He is not," said Harry._

_Ron snorted. "He sure acts like it."_

"_I know he's not exactly easy to get along with," said Harry, knowing this was the understatement of the year. "But once you get to know him he can actually be quite…well, nice. And very interesting."_

"_That one we're not arguing with," said George. "But I still say he's a git."_

_Ron nodded in agreement. "The way he looks at us when he sees us… I don't know how you can stand him, Harry."_

"_There is no reason to insult him, Ron," said Hermione reprovingly. "He's on our side now. And have you forgotten what he's done for Harry?"_

"_No," said Ron reluctantly. "But I still don't like him."_

"_I don't really care whether you like him," said Harry peevishly. "As Hermione said, he's on our side. He's risking his neck for us. And he and Sirius are the closest thing to parents I've got."_

"_He and Sirius hate each other," said Ginny._

"_That's beside the point," grumbled Harry._

_The __conversation __turned __to __other __things, __such __as __Bill__'__s __transfer __to __a __desk __job __so __that __he __could __work __for __the __Order __and the__subsequent__ "__private __English __lessons__" he was giving __Fleur __Delacour. __They __had __finished __discussing __Bill __and __Fleur, __and __also __Charlie __and __the __unfortunate __business __with __Percy, __and __moved __on __to __the __trash __the _Prophet _had __been __printing __about __Harry __when __there __were __suddenly __footsteps __on __the __stairs._

"_Uh-oh," said Fred, and with a quick tug on the Extendable Ear he was holding, he and George vanished. Immediately following the very audible cracking sound this had caused, came a sharp rapping on the bedroom door._

"_Mr. Potter, a word."_

_The voice was Professor Snape's. Harry looked around at his friends and swallowed. Despite his previous excitement at the possibility of seeing his Potions professor, the tone of the man's voice did not bode well for him. Knowing better than to keep the impatient Potions Master waiting, Harry hurriedly stood up, crossed to the door, and opened it._

"_Hello, Professor," he said, offering up a smile._

_Snape did not smile back. "Was there a murder being committed in this room, Potter?"_

"_Erm, no sir," said Harry in confusion._

"_Was someone gravely injured? Or perhaps in danger of becoming so?"_

"_No, sir."_

"_There were no matters of life and death occurring here whilst the rest of us were holding our meeting downstairs?" inquired Severus._

"_No, sir," Harry repeated._

"_Then would you kindly explain to me why you found it necessary to scream bloody murder in the middle of my rather important report?"_

_Oh. Behind Harry, Ginny giggled. "Erm…"_

"_I am still waiting for an answer, Potter."_

"_I was angry," said Harry lamely._

"_That much is obvious."_

"_No __one __told __me __anything __this __whole __time,__" __said __Harry, __feeling __his __anger __start __to __bubble __again.__ "__I __was __kept __completely __in __the __dark __about __things __that __obviously __have __to __do __with __me. __People __were __sent __to _guard _me__—"_

"_Did you ever consider," said Severus silkily, "that it was done for your own protection?"_

"_I still got attacked by dementors, didn't I?" said Harry angrily. "And I'm not a baby—"_

"_Then for Merlin's sake, Potter, stop acting like one. Your friends were not allowed to give you any more information that they did. And, before you ask, neither was I or anyone else."_

_Harry__glared__at__him.__ "__Everyone __was __here __without __me, __doing __things __and __knowing __what __was __happening __and __I __was __sitting __in __Privet __Drive __doing __and __knowing _nothing_! __I _hate _it __there!__"_

_Snape bent down to his level. "Did they hurt you?"_

_Harry shook his head. "No…they pretty much left me alone, didn't touch me, let me do what I wanted. I, erm, suppose you did that?"_

"_Yes."_

_Harry stared at his shoes. "Thank you."_

"_You're welcome." Severus laid a hand on Harry's head. "I know it is frustrating not to be in the know. But trust me, sometimes knowing too much can be a lot worse than knowing too little." He paused. "I'm glad you're safe."_

"_Were you worried when you heard about the dementors?"_

"_What do you think?"_

_Harry smiled up at him. "It was pretty scary."_

"_I can imagine. When is your hearing?"_

_Harry's face fell and a horrible knot twisted in his belly. "The twelfth of August."_

"_It is utterly ridiculous," said Snape, "trying someone for using magic in self-defense."_

"_D'you…d'you think I'll get off?"_

"_How should I know?" said Severus. "I'm a spy in the inner ranks of the Dark Lord, not the Ministry of Magic. You should get off. But then again, you shouldn't be being tried in the first place."_

"_That's not very comforting, sir," said Harry._

"_It's not my job to be comforting," said Severus shortly. He patted Harry on the shoulder. "It is time for me to leave. Tell your friends those insufferable twins that they are unsubtle as well as insufferable."_

_Harry hid a grin behind his hand and asked, "Will I see you again before term starts?"_

_Severus sniffed. "I try to spend as little time as possible in this…house. Harry bit his tongue. "But yes," Severus added, "I will be required to show myself a few more times this summer. If you are here then, I will see you."_

"_Okay," said Harry. "See you later then."_

_Severus's mouth quirked in the suggestion of a smile. "See you later, Harry."_

*****CTU*****

Harry ground his teeth. Why, why had he not seen? Why had he not listened to Ron and the twins? Just thinking about how close he had been to Snape, emotionally and physically, how eager he had been to see him and please him and _defend_ him, made Harry feel physically sick.

*****CTU*****

_Snape __did __not __appear __at __Number __Twelve __Grimmauld __Place __again __before __Harry__'__s __hearing. __The __morning __of __the twelfth of August, __Harry __was __an __emotional __wreck. __He __alternated __between __thinking __that __he __just __had __to __get __off __to __being __sure __that __there __was __no __way __he __could __possibly __get __off. __In __fact, __by __the __time __the __trial __itself __actually __started, __it __was __almost __a __relief __to __finally __be __getting __it __over __with. __Dumbledore, __apparently, __still __wasn__'__t __talking __to __him __or __looking __at __him, __but __his __annoyance __at __this __was __overshadowed __by __the __real __relief __that __in __fact __he __did __get __off __and __he __would __be __going __back __to __Hogwarts __in __September. __When __he __arrived __back __at __Grimmald __place, __still __feeling __excited __and __giddy, __despite __his __encounter __with__Lucius__Malfoy, __it __was __to __an __air __of __expectation __and __apprehension.__This __quickly __turned __into __full-fledged __celebration __when __Harry __and __Mr. __Weasley __told __the __others __the __good __news. __In __the __middle __of __the __festivities, __while __Fred, __George, __and __Ginny __were __still __running __around __the __kitchen __chanting_" He got off, he got off, he got off!" at the tops of their lungs, _the __kitchen __door __opened __and __another __person __entered __the __room. __Most __of __the __occupants __were __too __busy __celebrating __(or __trying __to __tone d__own __others__' __celebration) __to __notice __the __new __arrival, __but __Harry __caught __sight __of __the __tall, __dark __figure __out __of __the __corner __of __his __eye __and __turned __his __head __to __see __Severus __Snape __staring __down __at __him __from __the __kitchen __doorway._

"_Professor," he said._

"_Oh!" said Mr. Weasley, catching sight of him as well. "Severus, please, come join us."_

"_Not today, Molly," said Severus. "I cannot stay. I simply came to congratulate Harry on the outcome of his trial." He nodded in Harry's direction and Harry smiled and then immediately clapped a hand to his forehead._

"_What is it?" said Snape sharply, crossing the room in two long strides to stand at Harry's side._

"_My scar," said Harry, wincing. "But it's nothing… It happens all the time now…"_

_None of the others had noticed Harry's reaction and were now happily helping themselves to food or, in the case of Fred, George, and Ginny, still singing riotously._

_Severus gave Harry a probing look and pressed his thumb to the lighting-shaped cicatrice on the boy's forehead. "Does it still hurt?"_

"_No," said Harry, "It's fine, really."_

_Snape did not seem satisfied with this, but withdrew his hand anyway. "I must go. Be careful, Harry," he said._

"_Okay," said Harry, wondering what could possibly happen to him while he was at the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, surrounded, and sometimes nearly smothered, by its members._

"_Knowing you, Potter," said Severus. "An awful lot."_

*****CTU*****

"Damn Occlumency," muttered Harry. For, even though at the time he hadn't known what Occlumency was, that was obviously what Snape had been employing. "It wasn't enough that he had manipulated me into trusting and…and _loving_ him, he had to go about reading my mind too.

"_The __mind __is __not __a __book,__" _said Snape's voice, unbidden, in his mind, _"__to __be __opened __at __will __and __examined __at __leisure. __Thoughts __are __not __etched __inside __of __skulls, __to __be __perused __by __any __invader. __The __mind__—"_

"Shut UP!" shouted Harry, throwing _Intermediate __Transfiguration_ at the wall. It made contact with a loud _thump_.

"Oi!" came Uncle Vernon's voice from downstairs. "What do you think you're doing up there, boy?"

"Nothing!" shouted Harry angrily.

"Well, you can damn well do it more quietly!" snarled his uncle. "We're trying to watch the telly!"

Harry didn't respond, but went back to sorting through the contents of his trunk. The sooner he got out of this house the better as far as he, and probably the house's other occupants as well, was concerned.

**AN: Ugh, my tab, caps lock, escape, & 1 of my shift keys aren't working. Do you know how annoying that is? Almost as annoying as having to go through & add friggin' spaces back into anywhere that has italics & non-italics in the same paragraph! . **

**Anyway, tell me what you thought of the chapter, huh? I'm rather enjoying this kind of piece-meal style, are you?**

**Also, mostly unrelated, but who else saw the SPACE Tour? (If you don't know what that is a) you didn't see it, b) go look up Team Starkid right now).**

**Thanks for reading! I really do want to know what you thought! Because I know you people _do_ think.**

**-SQ**


	4. Chapter 4: Memories Demented

**Author's Note: So I don't know how this proofread went, considering I'm kind of sick (& have a final 8:30 am tomorrow & the next day, fml), but here's the chapter. I don't think it's the greatest, but it is what it is. Sorry, I'm too tired & bleh to be fun & peppy.**

**:)**

**-SQ**

**Disclaimer: My physical set of books, still written by JK Rowling**

**Chapter Four: Memories Demented**

Harry was getting thoroughly fed up. It wasn't that he ever had any expectations of the Dursleys listening to him—he wasn't delusional, after all—but he was trying to _save__them_. Why, he wasn't quite sure, except that he didn't want to have any more deaths on his conscience, even those of people so odious as his aunt, uncle, and cousin. Typically, though, if it had anything to do with "his lot" Uncle Vernon was having none of it.

The mention of dementors finally seemed to have had an effect on Dudley, and possibly on Aunt Petunia, but Uncle Vernon was still going on about his work and Dudley's school and a bunch of other things that didn't matter at all when—

"Don't you understand?" shouted Harry. _"__They __will __torture __and __kill __you __like __they __did __my __parents!__"_

And that was it, wasn't it? Harry realized. As much as he hated them, the Dursleys were his last remaining link to his parents, the last semblance of family he had left to him. Yes, they had abused him, yes they had made his childhood a living hell, no he didn't have any wish to ever see them again for as long as he lived, but, well, these past couple years had at least been bearable, thanks mostly to the intervention of Harry's ex-Potions master. His parents were gone, dead before he even got to know them, Sirius was gone, Dumbledore was gone, Remus was trying to start his own family, and Snape…

Dudley's voice, shaky but loud in the reverberations of Harry's outburst, thankfully interrupted this train of thought. "Dad—I'm going with these Order people."

"Dudley," said Harry, feeling rather impressed, "for the first time in your life, you're talking sense."

Things happened fairly quickly and efficiently after that. Harry went upstairs to finish packing his things, barely looking at them as he threw them pell-mell into his trunk,Hestia Jones and Dedalus Diggle arrived, and Uncle Vernon gave them only a nominal amount of trouble. Before Harry knew it Dedalus and Hestia were offering to step out of the room to allow Harry and the Dursleys a moment to say goodbye to one another.

He wished they wouldn't; the situation was awkward enough already. They stood there staring at each other for a few moments until Uncle Vernon said, "Well, this is goodbye, then, boy," and he and Aunt Petunia turned to leave and that was that.

Only Dudley did not follow them.

"I don't understand."

Harry, Uncle Vernon, and Aunt Petunia stared at him.

"What don't you understand, popkin?" asked Aunt Petunia.

"Why isn't he coming with us?"

Harry mentally groaned. Dudley was stupider than he had thought, and that was saying something. He let Uncle Vernon struggle thought the explanation, assuring him that he had absolutely no wish at all to go with them. But when Uncle Vernon had finished and gone to leave the room for the second time, Dudley remained where he was, wanting of know, of all things, where Harry was going if he wasn't going with them.

This question led to Uncle Vernon's all too familiar explanation of "off with some of your lot". Well, it was all too familiar to Harry; obviously it didn't sit quite as well with Hestia, who sounded very affronted as she said, "Off with some of _our_ lot?"

Harry did not want to go over this, especially with people he hardly knew. There were only a handful of people who knew what Harry's childhood had really been like, and two of those people were dead and one of them had turned out to be a two-faced murderer. Nonethelss, it was clear that Harry would have to say something to appease Hestia, and he was in the middle of explaining that it didn't matter, he was used to it, that the Dursleys didn't know or care how special he was in the magical world because they just considered him a waste of space, when he was interrupted, once again, by Dudley.

"I don't think you're a waste of space."

Harry stared at his cousin. Not in a million years would he have expected Dudley to say something like that. He wouldn't have believed it possible. He _still_ wouldn't have believed it possible if he hadn't seen and heard him say it.

"Well…er…thanks, Dudley."

"You saved my life."

Harry knew immediately what Dudley was referring too; he himself had brought it up not an hour before during his argument with Uncle Vernon over the necessity of the Dursleys' leaving. It wasn't an experience he remembered with pleasure.

*****CTU*****

_All he had been trying to do was listen to the bloody news, thought Harry testily as he kicked a few loose pebbles in front of him with his toe. The last time he had checked that hadn't been a crime. He wouldn't even have had to listen to the stupid Muggle news if the _Daily Prophet_ hadn't been blatantly denying to truth and his friends hadn't been refusing to divulge anything beyond "We've been quite busy" and "There's a fair amount going on."_

_Harry kicked savagely at the pebbles again, sending them flying off in to the street. He didn't expect anything more from the _Prophet_, not after the attitude Fudge had taken at the end of last year, but he would have thought his friends, at least, would have been a bit more forthcoming. How was he supposed to be the savior of the wizarding world if he didn't even know what was going on in the wizarding world?_

_Sirius's and Snape's letters were no better as far as news went, but at least he didn't feel as though they were teasing him every time they wrote to him. Mostly their letters contained words of caution, advising him to keep his nose clean and be careful and not do anything rash, no matter how frustrated he might be. Snape's latest letter, one of only two the man had sent, had also included a rather sever-sounding threat of what the man would do to him if he found out Harry had been doing anything he oughtn't. _

Harry,

I hope you are as well as it is possible to be in a place such as your aunt and uncle's house. I am also as well as I could hope given my current situation. No doubt your little friends have written you many nauseating letters which, if they have adhered to their instructions, have revealed none of their doings or whereabouts. This is as it should be, Potter, so wipe that asinine look off your face and think for one moment what would happen if a letter containing such information were to fall into the wrong hands.

I do not know when I will see you again, but when I do I very much hope that you will have behaved yourself properly and not done any of the typically foolish and dangerous things you are prone to doing. If I find that you have been involved in any such activities you will find such privileges as studying assistance and Hogsmeade visits to be revoked. You will also find that our increased level of relationship will work to your disadvantage in any detentions I may choose to give you, as I know exactly what use of your time you will enjoy least. Be forewarned, Harry, that my standards are very high, and falling short of them will risk my vast displeasure.

I will be watching.

—Severus Snape

_There was a time when this kind of thing would have scared Harry silly, and also made him incredibly mad; but now he knew that such fierce warnings were the Potions Master's way of saying he cared about him and wanted to make sure nothing bad happened to him, and that alone made his ignorance and confinement a little more bearable. As did the thought of what Snape and Sirius would say if they ever found out how similar the sentiments of their letters to Harry were to each other._

_Harry vaulted the fence into the park and sat down on the one swing Dudley had his gang had yet to break. There was a point in time when Harry had thought he would be leaving the Dursleys to live with each of these very different men. His dream of living with Sirius had quickly ended when his name had failed to be cleared for murders of which he was innocent. Harry actually had lived with Snape for most of last summer. It had certainly been an interesting and rocky several weeks, but all in all much preferable to living with the Durlseys. There had been plans in place for him to return to Spinner's End this summer, plans which had been wrecked by the return of Lord Voldemort and Snapes resumption of his role as a spy for Dumbledore. Not that Snape had told him this in so many words, but Harry had deduced as much, and the man's lack of a denial was as good as a confirmation. _

_Harry looked up when his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of voices. Considering that most of the voices were laughing stupidly at a loud, crude song another one of the voices was singing, it wasn't too hard for Harry to deduce who they belonged to. Sure enough, a few seconds later the streetlamps revealed the figures of Harry's cousin Dudley and his faithful gang of bullies and thugs. _

_Harry found himself hoping that they would see him sitting there. If they did they would surely come after him, as they had so many times before, and that would present Dudley with a dilemma that was sure to be entertaining to watch. He would be equally terrified of looking bad in front of his friends and of provoking Harry. And if they did come at him Harry was more than ready to meet them head on._

_In the back of his head a voice which sounded disturbingly like Professor Snape's told him in no uncertain terms exactly what it thought of his little plan, and what would happen to him if he carried it out. He never got the chance to decide whether to listen to the voice or not, however, as Dudley and his gang passed by the park without noticing Harry on his solitary swing. For a brief second he considered shouting after them, but the mere knowledge of what Snape would do if he found out that Harry had provoked a fight was enough to stay this impulse. Instead, he waited until Dudley's figure and voice and both faded away, and then rose up off the swing to follow, knowing that if he arrived home after Dudley he would be in for it from his aunt and uncle. Unlike with Snape, disappointing them concerned him not one whit, but the prospect of being locked in the shed—what Uncle Vernon had threatened to do to him if he came home after Dudley again—was not particularly inviting._

_After Dudley's friends had dispersed, Harry fell into step beside his cousin, taking out his frustrations with jibes he knew Dudley could not adequately respond to. _

_They walked together for a while in relative silence. Halfway down the alleyway between Magnolia Crescent and Wisteria Walk Dudley spoke. Harry thought he was all bluff and bluster, until he brought up Harry's nightmares. That was the last straw for Harry. Dudley had no _idea_ what Harry had been through last year, no one did. He pulled his wand, not caring about Sirius and Snape's warnings and the stupid Hogwarts rules. He honestly didn't know what he intended to do with it, whether he was just threatening Dudley or if he actually meant to use magic on him, but he never got a chance to finish doing either, because at that moment an icy, inky, despair-filled blackness descended upon the alley._

No_,__thought __Harry._No. It couldn't be…not here…

_He strained his ears, listening for the telltale rattle that would alert him to the presence of—_

_Dementors. _

_Dudley was still screaming and blubbering, telling Harry to stop doing whatever he was doing. Harry was trying to calm him down, to lead him away from the dementor coming steadily closer to them, so he was taken by surprise when Dudley's meaty fist stuck him in the temple._

_Cursing and blinking lights from his eyes, Harry scrambled for his glasses, his heart pounding. He heard Dudley start to run, not away from the dementor, but straight toward it. He stumbled after Dudley, but suddenly a second dementor was looming in front of him, its putrescent scabby hands reaching toward him, his parents' last words echoing in his head and the scene from last June in the graveyard flashing before his eyes._

_There were too many, he was unprepared, hadn't Snape told him never to be unprepared? He should have listened. He should have…Snape. Ron. Hermione. Ron and him laughing at stupid jokes. Hermione helping him with his homework. Snape being there when he had nightmare, knowing without asking what was troubling him, understanding what it was like…_

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

_His stag patronus burst from the tip of his wand and charged at the dementors, which fled, overpowered, into the night. Harry sent up a brief thanks to Lupin and Snape, pausing only a second to wonder what his Potions professor's patronus was, and then cast around for Dudley. He was lying on the ground in the fetal position, shaking and whimpering. As Harry took a step toward him Mrs. Figg, their crazy,cat-obsessed neighbor, appeared at the mouth of the alleyway._

_Mrs. Figg walked Harry and Dudley back to their house, all the way ranting about someone named Mundungus Fletcher and explaining to an extremely baffled Harry that she was a Squib and therefore knew all about Dumbledore and Hogwarts and everything magical. _

_Typically, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon made a huge fuss over Dudley when they got home, completely ignoring Harry except to grill him about what was wrong with their precious son. He tried to explain to them about the dementors, not expecting them to understand a word, but, shockingly Aunt Petunia _did_ know what he was talking about. _

_But the icing on the proverbial cake had been the series of letters he had received, interspersed between bouts of Uncle Vernon's yelling and Dudley's blubbering. The first had informed him that he was expelled from Hogwarts and that a Ministry representative would arrive shortly to snap his wand in half. As Harry had no intention of letting this happen, he was halfway out the doorwith his trunk and broomstick when the second and third letters arrived, nearly simultaneously. Both contained the message that he was not to leave the house or perform any more magic, but, as one was written by Mr. Weasley and the other by Professor Snape, the delivery was rather different._

Harry,

I trust that this letter telling you in no uncertain terms to remain at you aunt and uncle's house is entirely unnecessary, as only a complete fool would run out into the unknown night with neither a plan nor the lawful authorities on their side. Furthermore, I trust you are aware that while using magic in self-defense is permissible in certain situations, using it out of juvenile frustration is most certainly not condoned either by the Ministry or by myself. The best and only way in which you can assist your present situation is to remain where you are, as unpleasant a location as I am aware that is, and to refrain from any and all ridiculous wand waving. If I find you to have disobeyed my instructions in any manner I will be sorely displeased.

—Severus Snape

_Well, that was clear enough._

_The fourth letter was again from the Ministry, revoking his immediate expulsion and setting a court date for his trial for use of underage magic and violation of the Statute of Secrecy._

_The _fifth _letter, __arriving __in __the __middle __of __Harry__'__s __explanation __of __exactly __what __dementors __were and what they did __to __the __uncomprehending __Dursleys, __was __from __Sirius, __saying __much __the __same __as __the __second __two._

_There were two things which kept Harry from disregarding these warnings and hightailing it out of Privet Drive anyway. One was the knowledge that, whatever Sirius and Mr. Weasley may say or do, Snape really meant every word of his letter. The second was the sixth letter to come flying in through the window of number four. This was not addressed to Harry, but to Aunt Petunia, and contained only four words. But it was a Howler, which meant that somebody from the magical world was sending letters to his aunt, and that was almost more baffling that Mrs. Figg's and Aunt Petunia's knowledge of Dementors put together._

_When Harry was finally allowed—well, ordered—to go up to his room, the first thing he did was to write four letters and set them aside for when Hedwig came back. Three of them, addressed to Sirius, Ron, and Hermione, were identical. The fourth was for Snape, and Harry went through several versions before he had one he felt comfortable sending._

Professor Snape,

I was just attacked by dementors and now I might get expelled from Hogwarts_—_

o

Professor Snape,

Wanting me to be safe is one thing, but this is ridiculous_—_

o

Sir,

You said I would be safe here but obviously I'm NOT, so please come and get me_—_

o

Sir,

I got your letter. I haven't left or done any magic, but I would REALLY like to. I would also really like to know what is going on and why I was attacked by dementors and now might be expelled from Hogwarts for defending myself and my cousin against them.

I miss you

_Harry hastily scribbled out the last line and then signed his name._

—Harry

_Harry wanted information and he wanted it now but, as loathe as he was to admit it, he also wanted comfort. Being set upon by dementors wasn't exactly an experience that left you feeling hale and hearty, and, unlike Dudley, Harry didn't have any parental figure around to make him a cup of strong tea and tell him that everything was going to be okay. Then again, he had never had someone like that around. Well, except for for last summer…_

*****CTU****

Thoughts of Snape meant pain and anger that Harry didn't have time to deal with right now. Dudley was a much safer topic to focus on; and when he did, a thought occurred to Harry. After being attacked by dementors a few blocks from their house two summers ago, he and Dudley had had very little contact with each other. Harry had never much considered the impact that the encounter might have had on his cousin, too concerned had he been with his own problems, but it looked as though nearly having his soul sucked out of his mouth by an evil magical being had wrought a change in Dudley that Harry had failed to notice before now.

Harry exchanged his final goodbyes with his cousin and aunt with a considering air, wondering if Dudley really had changed for the better. After all, Harry's own father had in some ways been a bully while he was at school, he had seen it for himself in Dumbledore's pensieve during his Occlumency lessons with Snape… And that was a line of thought, he told himself firmly, that he did _not_ want to go down right now. With Dudley he'd have to wait and see; he knew for a fact that some people never changed.

**AN: I sincerely hope the next chapter will be better. But hey, at least this one was long, right? I can't believe I wrote this all in 1 day. Anyway, I am off to take a shower, eat, watch _Glee_, and then _actually_ go to bed early tonight. 8:30 am finals are the worst idea ever.**

**Reviews will make me feel better!**

**-SQ**


	5. Chapter 5: Sectumsempra

**Author's Note: I know, I know, where was this chapter? Where it was was not yet written because of parties, holidays, & family time. I've been to or hosted 4 parties/gatherings in the past week and a half and when I wasn't getting ready for, at, or cleaning up from one of those, every time I sat down to write fanfiction my family decided it was time to play a game. But here, finally, is the chapter, although I didn't get to read fic today because I was proofing this and I really ought to be in bed right now (but what else is new?). I hope you enjoy this chapter; at least it's pretty long, right? :)**

**-SQ**

**Disclaimer: There are so many problems with the idea of my owning _Harry Potter_ that I won't even go into them**

**Chapter Five: Sectumsempra**

What had started out as a fairly straightforward, if rather tense and secretive, relocation, had turned into a nightmare of confusion. Harry sat up from where he and Hagrid had crashed in the pond, his head spinning. Making his was splashily back onto land, Harry collapsed next to the dark mass on the ground that was Hagrid.

"Hagrid? Hagrid, talk to me—"

Hagrid did not respond, but another, unknown, voice called out, "Who's there? Is it Potter? Are you Harry Potter?

"They've crashed, Ted!" said a woman's voice before Harry could respond. "Crashed in the garden!"

Harry swallowed, feeling sick, and looked up, trying to see who it was that had spoken. Everything was fuzzy though, even thogh he had miraculously managed to retain his glasses. He looked back down at Hagrid, who still hadn't moved from where he had fallen.

"Hagrid," he said again before passing out.

*****CTU*****

Harry had woken up feeling physically better but still incredibly anxious. The man who had asked him who he was earlier, who turned out to be Tonks's father, assured him that Hagrid was fine, but he and his wife seemed greatly disturbed by the fact that Death Eaters had apparently known he was being moved that night.

As soon as he and Hagrid had been reunited they were off once again, this time to the Burrow. Hardly two minutes after they had arrived, Lupin and George appeared in a glow of blue light. As the light faded they staggered forward, George's face dripping blood onto the floor.

Harry leapt to help Lupin carry George to the sitting room sofa. In the light of indoors it was apparent that one of George's ears had been completely blown away.

Mrs. Weasley immediately took over the care of her son, and Harry found himself grasped in Lupin's iron grip.

Ignoring Hagrid's cries of indignation, Lupin said sharply, "What creature sat in the corner the first time that Harry Potter visited my office at Hogwarts? Answer me!"

Startled by the intensity of Lupin's grip and tone, Harry wracked his brains. "A-a grindylow in a tank, wasn't it?" he stuttered, wondering what would happen if he was wrong.

Lupin released him and Harry's eyes were drawn back to the awful sight of George bleeding on the sofa as Hagrid demanded an explanation from Lupin. Dragging his attention back to the pair Harry said, "None of the Order would have told Voldemort we were moving tonight." He explained what had happened to them once Voldemort had caught up to them and, at Lupin's prompting, how he had recognized him and their subsequent escape. Harry argument with Lupin over his use of _Expeliarmus _on Stan shunpike was cut short by Hagrid loudly breaking a chair.

Harry took advantage of the distraction to change the subject back to George, but they had barely started speaking again when there was another commotion outside.

It was Kingsley and Hermione, both blessedly unharmed.

"Where's George?" asked Kingsley after he and Lupin had exchanged the necessary information.

"He lost an ear," said Lupin.

"Lost an—?" repeated Hermione in a high voice.

"Snape's work," said Lupin.

"_Snape?"_ said Harry in a kind of strangled shout, his blood going hot and cold at the same time. "You didn't say—"

"He lost his hood during the chase," said Lupin bitterly, though without nearly as much bitterness as Harry felt. "Sectumsempra was always a specialty of Snape's."

_Yes, it was,_ thought Harry bitterly.

Lupin kept speaking, but Harry didn't hear him. He had seen firsthand the effects of the Sectumsempra spell once before; he himself had been the one cast it. In his defense, he hadn't know what the spell would do, or he never would have used it, but, as Hermione had constantly told him, he should not have been using spells and taking advice from an unknown source to begin with.

*****CTU*****

_Since Harry and Ron had thought that they would not be taking Potions this year, due to their less-than-perfect marks, they had, quite reasonably, not bought the required textbooks or materials. Now they suddenly found themselves in Professor Slughorn's NEWT Potions class completely unprepared. Luckily for them Professor Slughorn had extra supplies in his storeroom, and soon Harry and Ron were set up at their desk with borrowed scales and books._

_Harry frowned at his beat up copy of _Advanced Potion-Making_, not at all pleased by the fact that the previous owner had apparently deemed it necessary to fill the margins and even the actual text with his or her own cramped, inky scrawl. His opinion of the liberty-taking owner changed, however, when following the mysterious former-student's modified instructions proceeded to yield him a perfect potion and win him the promised vial of Felix Felicis._

_The book, which Harry continued to use during Potions, with excellent results, was the self-professed property of the "Half-Blood Prince", though either he nor Ron had any idea who the Half-Blood Prince could be. Ron didn't seem to be too concerned, but Harry was curious. He kept the book, even after his new one arrived from Flourish and Blotts, and continued using the Prince's instructions to brew his potions. _

_But comments and corrections on the potions recipes weren't the only things the mysterious Prince had added to his copy of _Advanced Potion Making_. Upon further study, Harry discovered that several handwritten spells had been scribbled into the cramped margins. Hermione was as adamantly against Harry's using the spells as she was against him following the Prince's Potion-brewing instructions. Harry didn't see what the big deal was. The _Muffliato _spell he discovered in the Prince's book proved to be extremely useful, and _Levicorpus _was rather amusing, as were several of the other spells Harry discovered written into the margins of the Half-Blood Prince's old textbook. _

_But when Harry finally had an opportunity to try out a spell entitled _Sectumpsempra_ and labeled "For Enemies", he had found it rather less innocent._

_Harry was on his way to dinner one evening, searching the Marauder's Map out of habit for the dot labeled Draco Malfoy. Harry had expected to see him either on his way to the Great Hall or not at all, indicating his presence in the Room of Requirement, so he was quite surprised to find his stationary dot inside the boys' bathroom on the floor below. What was even more surprising was that the dot next to him was not labeled Vincent Crabbe or Gregory Goyle, but Moaning Myrtle._

"_What the—?" Harry squinted down at the Map, wondering if his eyes were playing tricks on him, but no, there it was, the boys' bathroom occupied by two dots, one labeled "Draco Malfoy" and the other "Moaning Myrtle"._

Crash!

_Harry rubbed his head where he had banged it against a suit of armor, looking guiltily around the empty corridor where the sounds of his blunder were still reverberating._

"_Oops."_

_Harry hastened away from the offending armor, not wanting to have to explain the racket to Filch. He ran down the staircase to the floor below, stopping outside the door to the boys' bathroom._

_Knowing full well that it was none of his business, he pressed his ear to the door and heard…nothing. _

_And so, naturally, he pushed the door open and peered inside._

_What he saw was even more surprising than the fact that Malfoy was in there with Moaning Myrtle: the Slytherin was standing in front of one of the sinks, his head bowed; he appeared to be crying. Not just crying, but sobbing, broken words escaping his lips while tears splashed down his pale face into the basin below. The words of comport Moaning Myrtle was crooning from a nearby stall seemed to go unheard by the distraught boy._

_Harry should have gone; he should have turned around and left Malfoy to his lonely misery, but something kept him rooted to the spot until Malfoy lifted his head and saw Harry standing behind him, courtesy of the mirror above the sink._

_Well, naturally, Malfoy wheeled around and drew his wand at Harry, and, just as naturally, Harry drew his own wand, instinct taking over as he squared off against his longtime nemesis. Harry must have spent a few too many nights pouring over the Half-Blood Prince's book under his bedclothes, because the first spell that popped into his head was _Levicorpus_._

_Both of their spells were blocked or missed their targets. Moaning Myrtle was screaming for them to stop, but neither boy paid her the least attention. Again Malfoy and Harry fired, and again they missed. Then Malfoy, his face contorting in rage and…fear? said, _"Cruci—"

_Harry reacted immediately and out of the instinct of self-protection. In hindsight he would wonder why he had decided to try out a completely unknown spell when Malfoy was trying to use an unforgivable curse against him, but at the time it was what popped into his head, and the book had said it was "_

_For Enemies"._

"SECTUMSEMPRA!"

_The results were as immediate as they were horrible. The whole of Malfoy's chest and face blossomed with crimson blood. He took a staggering step backwards, tripped, and fell onto the sopping floor. The water ran red with his blood._

_Appalled, Harry lunged for the other boy, trying to staunch his wounds with his hands. He could hear Moaning Mytle screaming from somewhere above him, but he was too numb with shock and horror to take in what she was saying._

"_No," he said over and over again, as Malfoy began to convulse, "no—I didn't—no…"_

_The bathroom door behind Harry burst open, slamming against the wall with a crash. Harry whipped his head around and saw none other than Snape standing in the doorway, looking quite imposing with his hair flying around his head and his cloak stirred up about his body. His sharp black eyes passed quickly over the scene, taking in Harry's shell-shocked but unharmed demeanor and Malfoy's prone and bloody position. He pushed roughly past Harry and knelt next to the blonde, drawing his wand as he did so. Passing it over Malfoy's face and chest, he half spoke, half sung some kind of incantation. As he did so, the flow of blood from Malfoy's wounds slowed and then ceased, the cuts then beginning to knit themselves back together as Harry watched._

"_You need the hospital wing," said Snape, pulling Malfoy to his feet. "There may be a certain amount of scarring, but if you take dittany immediately we might avoid even that…Come…"_

_He started toward the bathroom door, Malfoy in tow, and then stopped and looked back over his shoulder at Harry._

"_I am not done with you, Potter," he said, his voice and eyes both boring into Harry with an unreadable intensity. "Wait here for me. I will be back to talk to you."_

"_Yes sir," said Harry shakily, it not occurring to him for a moment to argue or disobey. As Snape and Malfoy left the room, Harry pushed himself to his feet, feeling sick as he stared down at the flowers of blood floating in the puddles of water on the tiled floor. He stood there, as Moaning Myrtle wailed and sobbed, until the door opened once more and Snape reappeared, shutting it softly behind him._

"_Go," he instructed Myrtle, and she obeyed, disappearing into a toilet bowl and whisking out of sight._

_Harry swallowed, avoiding Snape's gaze. He felt awful; not only did he feel more ashamed and guilty than he could remember feeling in a long time, or perhaps ever, but he felt more afraid of Snape than he had been in years._

"_I didn't mean it to happen," said Harry weakly, pleadingly. "I didn't know what that spell did. I just…I found it somewhere…and I…I didn't know…I would never—"_

"_Potter," said Snape coldly. "You're rambling."_

_Harry bit his lip. "Sorry, sir. Is…is Malfoy okay?"_

"_Yes," said Snape shortly. "No thanks to you."_

"_I didn't mean—" _

"_It's obvious what you meant. Where did you learn that spell?"_

"_I...it was…" Harry traced the swirls of bloody water on the floor with his eyes._

"_Look at me when you speak to me, Potter."_

_Harry forced his gaze to meet his professor's._

"_Well…?"_

"_I…read it…"_

"_Where?"_

"_In a…book."_

"_What kind of a book?"_

"_A library book?" ventured Harry hesitantly. It came out sounding like a question._

"_Liar," spat Snape._

_Harry flinched._

"_Look at me."_

_Harry tried to resist, he did, knowing what Snape was about to do, but it was no use, Snape caught his gaze and held it, delving into his mind with so much force that it was physically painful._

_He cried out as the bathroom surrounding him flickered and merged with the wavering image of the Half-Blood Prince's copy of _Advanced Potion Making_ in his mind's eye._

_Snape's arm came around his waist to keep him from falling over and he deposited him a chair that the Potions Master must have just conjured. Harry blinked and the image of the book disappeared, to be replaced by his professor's face._

"_Potter?" Harry swayed. "Potter!"_

"_I…I'm okay," said Harry._

"_You had better be," growled Snape, sounding as though he was attempting to cover up his brief moment of anxiety. He hauled Harry to his feet. "Follow me."_

_Neither of them said another word until they had arrived at Snape's office. Then Snape sat Harry down in the chair across from his desk and said, "Where did you get that book?"_

"_Er…"_

"_Don't you even think about lying to me, Potter. I will know and I will not be happy."_

"_Professor Slughorn gave it to me," Harry mumbled. "To use until my own copy arrived."_

"_And has your own copy arrived?" asked Snape archly._

"_Yes…"_

"_And did you give the book back?"_

"…_no…" whispered Harry._

"_Why not?" asked Severus softly, dangerously._

"_It…it was…useful…" Snape glared at him. "Someone wrote helpful…suggestions…on how to make the potions."_

"_In other words, you were cheating."_

"_It was in my textbook," protested Harry._

_Snape looked far from impressed. "And it didn't occur to you that following instruction from an unknown source could be potentially dangerous?"_

"_Er…"_

"_Or did you simply ignore that little detail?"_

_Harry shuffled his feet, feeling incredibly young and stupid, not to mention more than a little scared of what Snape might do to him. It had been a long time since he has seen his ex-Potions, now Defense Against the Dark Arts professor this angry, especially at him._

"_Did you learn nothing from Miss Weasley's encounter in your second year?" hissed Severus._

"_This was nothing like that!" said Harry, rankled by the fact that Snape was bringing up the same concern that Hermione and Ginny herself had posed when Harry had first started using the instructions in the book._

"_You don't know that," said Snape, his voice layered with dark meaning._

_A sudden thought occurred to Harry. "Professor…Sir…do you know who wrote those things in the book?"_

_The way Severus's eyes snapped onto Harry's face was all the answer the sixteen-year-old needed._

"_You do! You know who it was! You know who the Half-Blood Prince was! You—" Harry stopped midsentence. He knew the look that had just come into his professor's eyes; he had seen it before, three years ago, right before Snape had admitted to having been abused by his father as a child, just as Harry had been abused by his aunt and uncle. Harry sucked in his breath. "No…no…_you_…?"_

"_There are a lot of things you don't know about me, Potter."_

*****CTU*****

Back in the real time of the present day Burrow, seventeen-year-old Harry gritted his teeth. Yes, there certainly were many things he hadn't known about Snape.

*****CTU*****

_Sixteen-year-old Harry looked at his professor through his fringe. "Where did you get those spells, anyway?"_

"_I wrote them," said Severus_

"_You mean you wrote—you _created_—?"_

"_Are you really that surprised?"_

_Harry didn't meet his gaze. Then he felt a strong, thin set of fingers beneath his chin._

"_You're not a bad person," muttered Harry, trying and failing to keep his eyes averted._

_Snape chuckled humorlessly. "I appreciate your confidence in my character, Potter, even if I do not share it."_

"_You're not," insisted Harry. "You made some…mistakes...but..."_

_Severus snorted darkly. "That is one way to put it."_

"_Why did you do it?" asked Harry, staring into Snape's bottomless eyes. "Why did you create such an awful spell?"_

"_I was angry," said Snape. "Angry and hurt. I'm sure you can relate."_

"_I would never—!"_

_Severus moved his hand to cover Harry's mouth. "I never said you would, Harry."_

_There were several seconds of silence, then, "So you were the Half-Blood Prince, then?"_

"_Yes," said Severus. "My mother's maiden name was Prince. My father was a Muggle."_

"_I should have known. Who else would be so self-righteously anal about Potions?"_

_Severus scowled, but, unlike earlier, there was no real menace in it._

"_I'm sorry I used that spell," said Harry. "I really didn't know what it did. I swear."_

"_I know you didn't," said Severus. "Which is exactly why you should not have used it."_

"_Are you going to take the book away?" asked Harry._

_Severus sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Potter, you will be the death of me. No, you have gotten this much use out of it, so I suppose you may keep the book. You will, however, have to serve detention with me every Saturday until the end of term."_

_Harry barely suppressed a groan. There was a Quidditch match this Saturday; his team was going to kill him._

"_Starting next week," continued Snape. Harry's head snapped up in disbelief. "As I have a previous engagement this coming Saturday."_

_This time it was a grin Harry did his best to hide as he replied, "Yes, sir."_

"_You are very lucky not to be expelled," said Severus seriously._

"_I know, sir," said Harry, the half-formed grin sliding off his face. When Snape didn't say anything more he ventured, "Since you're letting me keep the book, is the rest of it, erm, safe?"_

"_Yes," said Severus. "The rest of it is, indeed, safe."_

"_Ron and Hermione are going to want to know—"_

"_You may tell them what they need to know."_

_Harry nodded, understanding perfectly. "Thank you sir." He hesitated. "Um…do you have any idea what Malfoy—?"_

"_It is none of your business," said Snape in a tone which brooked no argument._

_Though far from satisfied, Harry knew better than to argue with his professor at the moment. Instead he stood to leave, but Snape called him back. "Harry," he said sharply. Harry turned, wondering what he was being chastised for now. "Are you sure you are alright?"_

_Harry's stance relaxed and he smiled slightly. "Yes, I'm sure. Are you sure Malfoy's alright?"_

"_I wouldn't have said so otherwise," was Severus's deadpan response._

*****CTU*****

_Neither Ron nor Hermione knew quite how to react to the news that Professor Snape had been the Half-Blood Prince. Hermione had been convinced that the Prince was malevolent, and Ron remained highly suspicious that Snape was, so neither of their opinions of the man were particularly improved by the news. Hermione, especially, was shocked and dismayed that Snape had actually let him keep the book, not the least because she still considered his use of it cheating. Harry was slightly annoyed at their attitudes, but he didn't let them bother him overmuch; he had long since grown used to Ron's skepticism and Hermione's tendency to overthink and overanalyze everything. Mostly, Harry was glad that at least one of his mysteries had been solved, even if his Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was still keeping tight lipped about most of his other dealings._

*****CTU*****

Stupid, stupid, stupid...!

Harry rubbed his face angrily, wondering why his brain insisted on tormenting him with these painful memories. He had actually thought that having Snape's old Potions textbook, and actually having the man's permission to keep it, had given him an even closer connection with his professor. He shuddered at the thought. Now the last thing he wanted was any sort of connection with the currently AWOL ex-Hogwarts professor, and he wouldn't have touched the man's old textbook with a six meter pole.

Hermione's voice played over and over again in his mind: _"I'm starting to think this Prince character was a bit dodgy." "Who puts their time and energy into making up spells like that?" "It doesn't seem as though he was a very nice person to me!"_

Why did Hermione always have to be right?

**AN: Yes, I am aware that the HBP chapter that these events happen in is also titled "Sectumsempra". It fits!**

**As always, I love to read your comments muchly, so send them my way ;)**

**-SQ**


	6. Chapter 6: Occlumency

**Author's Note: Go check the length of this chapter and then ask me why it took so long to get it posted. I have never posted a chapter this long on _any_ of my fics, it's a tad ridiculous. I mean, I know other people write chapters of this length and longer, but I generally don't. It was necessary to cover everything to do with Occlumency in Harry's 5th year though. Hope you enjoy :)**

**-SQ**

**Disclaimer: I may own multiple copies of the books, a Hufflepuff water bottle, and the Marauders' Map, but I still don't own actual _Harry Potter_**

**Chapter Six: Occlumency**

Harry was getting pretty sick and tired of people not listening to him. He knew what he had seen, he knew what he had felt, he _knew_ that his wand had spun toward Voldemort and fired a spell that Harry had never seen before with no direction from Harry whatsoever. What he didn't know was why everyone else still refused to believe him about it! No, he hadn't heard of that happening before, no, it wasn't normal, but then what having to do with him was. His frustration compounded by the ever-building pain in his scar, Harry excused himself before he said or did something he would regret later.

Harry crossed the darkened lawn to stare broodingly over the gate into the garden, paying the grazing thestral about as much attention as the skeletal beast paid him. He rubbed his forehead angrily as another flash of pain seared through his scar. He wished Dumbledore was there. He would understand, he would believe him; Dumbledore always knew what to do. Sirius would believe him too. But they were dead, just like Mad-Eye and his parents and even Hedwig, who had never done anything to anybody. A burning in his throat rose to match that in his scar.

Suddenly the pain his forehead peaked with a burning intensity and Harry doubled over, clutching his forehead with one hand and the garden fence with the other. Lights pulsated behind his closed eyelids and then coalesced into a scene as a high, cold voice sounded at a painful volume inside his head.

"_You told me the problem would be solved by using another's wand!"_

And old man was lying on a stone floor. He was so thin and the rags surrounding him so concealed him that Harry wouldn't have noticed him is he hadn't been screaming in almost incoherent agony.

"_No! No! I beg you…"_

"_You lied to Lord Voldemort, Ollivander!"_

Harry started. Ollivander? He looked at the prone man again and noticed the large, almost luminescent eyes in the face which otherwise bore no resemblance to the man who had sold him his wand six years before.

"_I did not…I swear I did not…"_

Voldemort continued to accuse Ollivander of lying to him, of attempting to aid Harry, and Ollivander continued to deny it. Harry wasn't quite sure what Voldemort was so angry about, but it had something to do with wands; Lucius Malfoy's wand had been destroyed, something about a connection… Voldemort raised his wand in his long, whit fingers and pointed it at Ollivander…

"Harry?"

He was jerked out of the vision by Hermione's voice; she and Ron were standing beside him in the yard. He had to blink several times to bring them into focus.

Once he had control of his breathing and limbs again, he followed Ron and Hermione back to the house, explaining his vision to them on the way. As soon as he finished telling them he wished he hadn't. Ron merely looked horrified and slightly sick, but Hermione immediately gripped his arm and implored, "But it was supposed to have stopped! Your scar—it wasn't supposed to do this anymore! You mustn't let that connection open up again—Dumbledore wanted you to close your mind!"

Harry did not reply. What could he say? He knew he was supposed to close his mind, that it was what Dumbledore had wanted, but a fat lot of good that did him now.

"Harry!" said Hermione urgently with what proved to be a rather good point, "he's taking over the Ministry and the newspapers and half the Wizarding world! Don't let him inside your head too!" She softened her voice. "I know what Snape did hurts, Harry, it was awful. Snd I know he must have had a lot of valuable information to give to Voldemort, but he gave you this one weapon, Harry, _use it_."

*****CTU*****

Harry sat in bed in the dark of Ron's room at the Burrow, thinking about what he had seen earlier in the yard. Hermione was right; Dumbledore had been very explicit in his wish that Harry learn to block Voldemort's thoughts, feelings, and actions from his mind. That had been the whole reason behind Harry's Occlumency lessons with Snape during his fifth and sixth years.

Harry glowered. As much as he hated to admit it, the lessons had definitely helped. Occlumency had seemed nearly impossible at first, but when he wasn't trying to intimidate you or make your life miserable Snape was a good teacher. Hermione was also right it her deduction that Snape was the reason Harry had ceased practicing the technique; he was loath to do anything that associated him with the man who had betrayed them all.

*****CTU*****

_Harry was in the middle of an intense game of wizard chess with Ron when Mrs. Weasley peered around the door to their bedroom and told him that Professor Snape wanted a word with him. Harry was so engrossed in the game, where his castle was attempting to knock Ron's pawn off of the board, that she had to repeat what she had said before Harry registered it. When he did he looked up in great surprise._

"_Snape?" he said incredulously._

"Professor_ Snape, dear," Mrs. Weasley corrected him. "Now come on, quickly, he says he can't stay long."_

"_What's he want with you?" said Ron suspiciously as his mother left to go back downstairs._

_Harry shrugged. Conversations with Snape weren't that uncommon, after all the man had more-or-less taken on the role of Harry's unofficial guardian, even if neither of them would ever call it such out loud. It _was_, however, unusual for Snape to be showing up at Grimmauld Place unannounced in the middle of the Christmas holidays._

"_I dunno," said Harry, getting to his feet. "But I'd better go see. He doesn't exactly like to be kept waiting."_

"_Well _that's_ the understatement of the year," Ron muttered to Hermione as Harry left the room._

_Harry entered the kitchen and found a scene that was at least as strange as the fact the Snape had come to talk to him at Grimmauld Place during the holidays to begin with: The Potions Master was seated at the table with none other than Sirius Black, owner of the house and Harry's godfather. The two men were glaring in opposite directions and a silence born of mutual dislike hung between them, hovering over the letter which lay open on the table in front of Sirius._

_When neither man seemed to notice his entrance, Harry shuffled his feet awkwardly and cleared his throat. "Er…"_

_Two faces, both framed by black hair but otherwise as different as night and day, turned to look at him. Snape was the one who spoke._

"_Sit down, Potter."_

"_You know," said Sirius loudly to the ceiling, his chair tilted back at a precarious angle," I think I'd prefer it if you didn't give orders here, Snape. It's my house, you see."_

_Snape's usual pallor colored slightly and Harry hurried to sit in between his godfather and professor in a vain attempt to alleviate some of the palpable tension in the room._

"_You wanted to see me, sir?"_

"_Yes…" Severus turned his attention back to Harry. "I was supposed to see you alone, Potter," he continued, the hint of a sneer curling his lips, "but Black—"_

"_I'm his godfather," Sirius interjected in an even louder voice._

_Harry suppressed a sigh. He knew it was useless to wish that these two would get along better—Snape and Sirius were like oil and water—but it would certainly make his life easier; both men were equally important to him, and he to them. Was it really too much to ask that they put aside their differences for five minutes?_

_Apparently, yes._

"_I am here on Dumbledore's orders," said Snape in a voice as quiet as Sirius's had been loud, "but by all means stay, Black, I know you like to feel…involved."_

"_What I would like to be _involved_ in," said Sirius angrily, "is my own godson's education!"_

"_Your godson he may be," said Severus softly, "but he is _my_ student. While I am sure that your inability to do anything _useful_ for the order must be eternally…frustrating, I have more pressing concerns."_

_Harry winced and internally groaned. Realizing that wringing his touchy Potions Master's neck would be a decidedly bad idea, no matter what the circumstances, Harry decided to try to change the subject. _

"_Sirius, Professor, what exactly do you mean about my education?"_

_Snape turned to his, fingers steepled. "The headmaster has sent me to tell you, Potter, " (was his surname _really_ necessary?) "that it is his wish for you to study Occlumency this term."_

_Harry blinked. "Erm, study what? Sir."_

_Severus gave him one of his familiar long-suffering looks. "Occlumency, Potter. The magical defense of the mind against external penetrations. An obscure and difficult branch of magic, but a highly useful one."_

_Harry swallowed, his heart rate increasing exponentially as he took in his professor's words. What exactly did Snape mean by external penetration? They had just decided that he _wasn't_ being possessed!_

"_What do you mean, 'defense against external penetration'?" He asked, unable to help himself. "What kind of external penetration? And how do I defend against it? What is Occlu—whatever and why do I have to study it?"_

"_Occlu_mency_," said Snape, a hint of a sardonic tone coloring his voice, "is just as I described it to you. I trust I do not have to repeat myself. You have to study it because the headmaster thinks it is a good idea. As do I," he added, staring hard at Harry. "You will receive private lessons once a week, but you will not tell anybody what you are doing, least of all Dolores Umbridge."_

_Well Harry could certainly see the sense in that, and heartily agreed that the less Umbridge knew about his doings the better. He also agreed with the barely suppressed tone of distinct distaste with which the Potions Master said the High Inquisitor's name._

"_Who's going to be teaching me then?" said Harry._

_Snape raised an eyebrow._

"_I am."_

_Harry almost grinned at him, but felt that it would have been slightly inappropriate in the presence of his godfather. That thought proved to me well-advised when Sirius said angrily, "Why you? Why can't somebody else teach Harry? Why this sudden interest in Harry's wellbeing and education. Last time I checked that was _my_ job."_

"_That may be," said Severus in a contemptuous tone which indicated just how well he felt Sirius was doing that job, "but _I_ am the one who is proficient in Occlumency, unless you have acquired the skill while I was not looking."_

_Sirius glared at him. "Dumbledore could do it."_

"_The headmaster," said Severus icily, "has many obligations to fulfill without adding yet another to his already full agenda. I do not question Professor Dumbledore's judgment and neither should you."_

_Harry almost snorted at this. Snape questioned Dumbledore's judgment all the time. He took this as a sign that the caustic Potions Master did not mind his appointment as Harry's Occlumency instructor; in fact, Harry had a sneaking suspicion that he may have even requested _

_Severus had risen from the table while Harry was lost in his own thoughts. Now he turned his attention once more to the teenager and said, "I will expect you at six o'clock Monday evening, Potter. My office." He turned to the door; the black traveling cloak he had neglected to remove fanned out behind him as he strode toward it._

_Sirius sat up straighter in his chair. Harry held his hand out in an attempt to keep his godfather from saying whatever it was he was going to say to Snape, but the man waved him away. "Wait a moment."_

_Snape stopped midstride and turned back around on his heel._

"_Sirius," said Harry. "Don't."_

"_I am rather in a hurry, Black…" said Severus, "unlike you, I do not have unlimited leisure time."_

_Harry gritted his teeth. Not this again._

_Sirius stood up. Harry resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands. "I'll get to the point then," said Sirius. Harry wished he wouldn't. "I don't trust you," growled Sirius. "I don't trust your intentions, I don't trust your loyalties, and I sure as hell don't trust you with my godson. If I hear on _whisper_ about you using these Occlumency lessons to give Harry a hard time you will have me to answer to. I have only one godson and Harry has only one godfather, rest assured that neither of us are going to forget that, and you would be wise not to either."_

_Harry appreciated that his godfather wanted to protect him, but he really didn't need protection from Snape. The Potions Master wasn't going to go easy on him, he knew that, but he doubted that he would use the Occlumency lessons to "give him a hard time" either._

"_How touching," Snape sneered in response to Sirius's not-so-veiled threat. "However, I am sure that Potter can handle anything I throw at him."_

_Harry felt his chest swell at this unusual bit of praise, but unfortunately Sirius did not see it that way._

_He pushed his chair aside so roughly that it nearly fell to the floor, making his way toward Snape with his wand raised. Severus lost no time in drawing his own wand, squaring up against Sirius as Sirius did the same to him, eyeing each other's faces with obvious malice._

"_Professor!" said Harry loudly, alarmed at the level that their disagreement had escalated to. "Sirius! Stop!"_

_Neither man appeared to hear him._

"_I've warned you, _Snivellus_," said Sirius, leaning toward the man in front of him. "I don't care if Dumbledore thinks you've reformed, I know better—"_

__"Sirius!"_ said Harry again. Again he was ignored as increasingly barbed insults continued to be traded between the two adults in the room._

"_You would do well, Black," hissed Snape, " not to overextend yourself. Contrary to what you might believe, nobody's world revolves around you. I do not need your approval to do what I do, neither concerning Harry nor my work for the order. If I were you, I would worry about myself and my chances of being taken seriously after hiding in my mother's house for six months."_

_Harry could not believe it. They were actually fighting over him! They had no reason and _no right_! Harry was allowed to have more than one adult who cared about him in his life! Merlin knew he had gone through enough of it without any._

"_And if I were _you_," shouted Sirius, "I'm sure I would be please with myself, getting to make nice with Dumbledore _and_ be Lucius Malfoy's lapdog at the same time!"_

_Snape narrowed his eyes. "The only _dog_ around here, Black, is you, and both I and Lucius Malfoy know it. Clever little trick, that, getting yourself seen so you wouldn't have to leave the security of your house. Though it might make all those _duties_ you claim to have a bit difficult to carry out."_

"_Professor!" said Harry, angered both by Snape's words and the fact that he was being ignored. "Stop it!" He knew he would not get away with speaking to his professor in this manner, but at the moment he didn't care. He knew and accepted that Snape had never and would never like or get along with his godfather, but this was taking things too far. Harry couldn't decide which man he was madder at._

_When Sirius pointed his want at Snape and made to cast a spell Harry finally took a more direct approach to intervention._

"_NO!" He vaulted over the table and shoved himself between the two men, who were radiating hate at each other. "Sirius, don't. Professor _stop_! You—are—adults!" said Harry furiously, refusing to be shoved out of the way by either party. "Stop—acting—like—this!"_

"_Harry—get—out—of—it," his godfather demanded._

"_I will _not_ get out of it!" said Harry. "Did either of you ever both to ask _my_ opinion in the matter before fighting over me like this!"_

"_As usual, Potter, you presume much with the thought that you are the reason behind everything that happens."_

"_Really?" Harry demanded, "because it certainly _looks_ like you're fighting over me! And I'm telling you to _stop_!"_

"_Potter, I _order_ you to cease your interference at once or I shall be forced to—"_

_Harry never heard what Snape would be forced to do, as at that moment the kitchen door opened and the entire Weasley family plus Hermione flooded into the room._

*****CTU*****

Harry rubbed his scar, which was prickling uncomfortably again. Right now he fervently wished that he had allowed Sirius hex Snape that afternoon. But he didn't even have the satisfaction that memory would give him. Now, memories of the following Occlumency lessons with Snape, those he had aplenty.

*****CTU*****

_Harry was still in quite a good mood that evening as he made his way down to Snape's office. After all, it wasn't every day that you successfully asked out the girl you'd been sweet on for ages. His good mood significantly diminished, however, when he remembered the last encounter he had had with Snape outside of Potions class._

_Harry knocked on the Potion Master's office door and stuck his head inside._

"_Professor? Hello?" He took a couple steps into the room. "Er…I'm here."_

"_So I see."_

_Harry jumped as his professor appeared suddenly out of the shadows._

"_Don't do that," said Harry._

_Severus just smirked. "Sit down, Harry." Harry sat. "How were your Christmas holidays?"_

"_Er, good, sir," said Harry warily. "How were yours?"_

"_Uneventful," replied Severus. "With one or two notable exceptions."_

_Harry shifted in his seat. "That wasn't my fault."_

"_No," said Snape, "I suppose it was not."_

"_It wasn't entirely Sirius's either," said Harry pointedly. "You provoked him." Severus's lip curled. "You did!" insisted Harry stubbornly. "_Neither_ of you had to act that way."_

_Snape took a long breath and let it out slowly. "I admit that the mu—that your godfather has a habit of getting on my last nerve."_

"_You don't have to like each other," said Harry sullenly, "but I wish you'd both accept that I like both of you."_

_This caused Severus's mouth to twitch. "Oh?" he inquired. "You do, do you?"_

"_Of course I do," snapped Harry. "We've been over this."_

"_I believe we have also been over the fact that certain behavior, such as shouting and talking back to me are not to be tolerated."_

_Harry glared at him mutinously. "I wasn't at school or at your house. It was Christmas Holidays. You can't punish me."_

"_You do not regret your actions?"_

"_Do you regret yours?" Harry retorted boldly._

_There was a pause._

"_Only in the fact that they seem to have distressed you to such an extent," said Severus finally._

_There was another heavy silence._

"_I never got to wish you a Happy Christmas," mumbled Harry finally._

_Snape's mouth and eyebrow quirked in a mildly amused expression. "The manner of things which trouble you never cease to amaze me, Harry. Very well then, you may do so now."_

"_Er—" said Harry, feeling like an idiot. "Happy belated Christmas."_

"_Likewise to yourself," said Snape, inclining his head._ _ "I trust that you are prepared to dedicate yourself once more to your studies?" He raised an eyebrow._

"_Er, yes sir," said Harry._

_Severus gave a disbelieving snort. "Somehow I doubt that, but we shall soon find out. You are here," he said, folding his hands on the desk in front of him, "to learn Occlumency. This is a specialized and nuanced branch of magic and it will require your full effort and concentration to master it."_

"_Sir," said Harry, "why is it so important that I learn it?"_

_Snape stared balefully back at him. "Do I really need to answer that question? I know you have a brain, Harry, use it."_

_Snape proceeded to explain about Legilimency, which was _not_ mind reading, but sounded an awful lot like it to Harry, and the connection that evidently existed between Harry's and Voldemort's minds._

"_Ugh," said Harry, shuddering. "I don't want to be connected to Voldemort. But…" he hesitated. "It has been kind of useful, hasn't it? I mean, if I hadn't seen that snake attack Mr. Weasley Professor Dumbledore wouldn't have been able to save him."_

_Snape stared very hard at Harry, who had to concentrate in order not to squirm. "This 'usefulness' as you call it," he said finally, "comes at too great a cost to your safety. Your latest foray into the Dark Lord's mind did not go undetected."_

"_You mean that Voldemort knows I've been seeing these things."_

"_He did not," said Snape. "But now, yes, I, and Professor Dumbledore agrees with me, believe he does."_

_A sudden thought occurred to Harry. "If I'm sharing Voldemort's thoughts, how come I saw through the snake's eyes when it attacked Mr. Weasley?"_

"_That appears to be where the Dark Lord's mind was at the time," said Severus in a measured voice. "That is unimportant, however," he continued. "What is important is that the Dark Lord now knows of the connection between your mind and his, a connection which he had realized is likely to work both ways."_

"_Is he going to try to possess me like he did Ginny?" asked Harry softly._

"_Although the execution would be somewhat different, something of that nature is a distinct possibility," said Severus. "It is our job to make sure that that does not happen. Hence, Occlumency."_

_Severus stood and Harry followed suit. As he did so he noticed for the first time that Dumbledore's Pensieve was sitting on the far end of Snape's desk. Before he could ask what it was for Snape had put his wand to his temple and withdrawn a strand of silver-white substance, which he deposited into the Pensieve. This gesture was repeated twice more before Snape moved the Pensieve off to the side._

"_What was that for?" asked Harry curiously._

"_What was what for?" said Severus, arching an eyebrow._

"_You know, with the Pensieve."_

_Snape's eyebrow rose higher. "I would think that would have been obvious."_

"_You don't trust me with your thoughts?" said Harry, half-teasing._

"_Contrary to what you may believe, Potter, I do like to maintain some level of privacy; it is advantageous to my position as your professor."_

_Harry's mouth quirked. "So how come I don't get to put away my thoughts then?"_

"_You are the student," said Severus. "And there is only one Pensieve. Now," he continued in a serious tone, "I am going to attempt to break into your mind. You are going to resist me. You may use your wand to defend yourself, but your real defense will be with your mind. I do not expect you to succeed on your first attempt; I do expect you to make an effort." He paused for a moment, raising his wand and making eye contact with Harry, then, _"Legilimens!"

_Harry experienced a sudden wave of vertigo as the room flickered and dissolved before his eyes, transforming into what appeared to be a rapid-play movie of scenes from his childhood._

_Dudley on his new bicycle. Ripper chasing him up a tree while the Dursleys laughed below. Him scrubbing down the kitchen until the skin on his hands was raw and bleeding. Aunt Petunia sending him to his cupboard without dinner for the third night in a row. Dudley and his gang jumping him, two of them holding him down while Dudley pummeled his stomach until he felt like he was going to be sick. Uncle Vernon shoving him against the corner of the table, Uncle Vernon hitting him with his belt, the buckle raising angry welts where it connected with his skin…_

_Harry felt himself collapse. Strong arms caught him and lowered him gently to the floor. A cool, dry hand pressed against his forehead._

"_Potter. Potter. _Harry._"_

_He opened his eyes._

"_Are you alright?"_

"_I—I think so."_

_Snape helped him to sit up and conjured a glass of water for him to drink "You are supposed to try and resist me."_

"_You surprised me," said Harry in a shaky voice._

"_The Dark Lord will hardly knock on your door and politely request permission to enter your mind," said Severus, helping Harry to his feet. "You must be prepared." They squared off against each other once more. "I know you do not wish to relive these memories, Harry, and I take no pleasure in forcing you too. But the exercise is necessary." _

_Harry nodded. "I know. It's okay. You—you know anyway."_

"_Indeed I do," said Severus tiredly. "I am pleased to see that none of those memories are more recent."_

_Harry nodded. "Yeah, I mean yes, it's…it's a lot better."_

"_Shall we try again?"_

_They did. This time Harry saw himself under the Sorting Hat, being told he would do well in Slytherin, causing a diversion so that Hermione could sneak into Snape's storage cabinet and steal the ingredients necessary for the Polyjuice Potion—_no,_ thought Harry, _I don't want you to see that_—standing by the lake as dementors closed in around him, drawing nearer to Cho underneath the mistletoe—_No! Get out!

_Harry felt himself collapse again, and this time there were no arms to catch him. He collided painfully with the floor and looked up at Snape, his eyes watering. The Potions Master was rubbing his wrist, which looked as though it had been burnt._

"_Did you mean to produce a stinging hex?" asked Snape._

_Harry shook his head, his cheeks burning with shame, though whether about the potions ingredients or the kiss he wasn't entirely sure._

"_I always knew it was you and your little friends," said Snape, as though he knew what Harry was thinking. Which, Harry reflected, he more or less did. "Thieves, the lot of you. I ought to put you all in detention."_

"_That was in our second year!" Harry protested._

"_Yes," agreed Snape. "And you had better be grateful I had no proof of your guilt when it happened."_

_Harry nodded fervently._

"_As it is, I am far from pleased," said Severus. "Those were valuable ingredients which no doubt went toward the concocting of an illegal potion with the intent of breaking even more school rules. It is a wonder you didn't all get yourselves killed."_

"_Hermione—"_

"_Is often too smart for her own good," said Severus. "However, the matter at hand is Occlumency, and you did manage to repel me eventually."_

"_So I did well?" asked Harry._

"_Hardly," said Severus dryly. "You lost control. You need to clear your mind, empty it of emotion."_

"_Easier said than done," muttered Harry._

"_Practice makes perfect," said Severus. "Again."_

_They continued for another hour, Harry growing more and more frustrated with every failed attempt. He _wanted_ to be able to do it, he just _couldn't_!_

"_Yes," said Snape after once more helping Harry to his feet (he had fallen again), "you _can_. I repeat, once again, rid your mind of emotion."_

"_It's harder for me that it is for you!" said Harry angrily._

_Snape grabbed his arm and jerked him around to face him. "I never said it was easy, Potter. I had to learn same as yourself. Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked this easily stand no chance against the Dark Lord's powers. This is a luxury neither you nor I can afford. You _will_ learn discipline, even if it kills us both."_

_They glared at each other for a few moments, then Harry lowered his eyes. _

"_I'm sorry professor, I'm just frustrated."_

"_Let go of your frustration," said Severus. "And try again. _Legilimens!"

_This time Harry was ready and managed to thrust a mental barrier against his professor's initial attack. He was tired, though, and his barrier had holes in it. It only took a few seconds for Severus to find a weak spot and break through, unraveling Harry's defenses. Vainly Harry attempted to build them back up, but instead found himself running alone a windowless passage with Mr. Weasley, approaching a plain back door at the end of the corridor. Instead of going though it they veered off to the left…_

"_Professor!" shouted Harry._

_Severus withdrew from his mind so quickly that it sent Harry reeling. Looking up from where he had fallen, yet again, on Snape's office floor, he saw his professor's brows knit together in a combination of alarm and worry._

"_What is it?" he said sharply, taking a step toward him. "What's wrong?"_

"_Nothing," said Harry, getting to his feet. "It's only I've just realized something. That door, it leads to the Department of Mysteries. I've been trying to figure out why it seemed so familiar for months."_

_Snape's eyes narrowed. "Explain."_

_So Harry did, about the door he had seen on his way to his trial with Mr. Weasley, and how he had been dreaming about it almost every night for months without realizing what it was, how the door never opened no matter how desperately he wanted to get inside._

_Severus listened to his explanation, looking increasingly troubled. "How long have you been having this dream?"_

"_I told you," said Harry, "for months now. Only I just now realized where it is—"_

"_You should not be having it," Snape interrupted. "I want you to practice clearing your mind every night before you go to bed."_

"_But don't you think it could be important?" said Harry._

"_I think it could be incredibly important," replied Severus. "Which is why it is imperative that you block it from your mind."_

"_That doesn't even make any sense!"_

_Snape fixed him with a level stare. "My number one priority is to keep you safe, Harry, do not make my job any harder."_

_Harry bit his lip. "Sorry sir. Are you going to tell Dumbledore about the door?"_

"Professor_ Dumbledore," said Snape. "And yes. But I shall tell no one else," he added. "What occurs during these lessons will not leave this room. You have my word."_

_Harry gave his professor a small smile. "Thank you, sir."_

*****CTU*****

The problem was that Harry was simply not a very good Occlumens. Asking him to cut off his emotions was like asking him to cut off his right hand. He had finally managed to make a decent amount of improvement, but not without a lot of hard work and frustration. In hindsight, he should have known trying to hide the continuing dreams from Snape was a futile and ill-advised idea. Then again, in hindsight he saw a lot of things that he should have done differently.

*****CTU*****

"_Get up, Potter."  
><em>

_Harry got to his feet, wincing. Snape had called him by his last name, never a good sign._

"_What was that last memory?"_

_Harry tried to remember what the last of the speeding images to go through his head had been. "Er…I dunno."_

"'_aHa__Er' is not a word," said Snape. "And you _do_ know or it would not have been in your mind. "Who was that man kneeling on the floor and how did he and that particular room come to be inside your head?" Harry swallowed. "I'm waiting."_

"_I dreamed it," Harry mumbled._

"_Pardon?"_

"_I dreamed it," said Harry more loudly. "I know I'm not supposed to, but I did, okay?"_

_Severus pinched the bridge of his nose. "Every time I think you might actually be learning something you remind me of what an insufferable child you are."_

"_I'm not a child," said Harry heatedly._

"_Well you certainly act like it!" snapped Severus. He pinched the bridge of his nose again. "Do you _enjoy_ these visions?"_

"_Of course not!" said Harry._

"_Then make an effort not to have them! This is not a game, Potter," said Severus softly. "And it is not up to you to find out what the Dark Lord is saying to his Death Eaters."_

"_No," snapped Harry, feeling peeved, "that would be your job."_

_He immediately regretted saying it, more so when he saw the flicker of emotion that went through his professor's dark gaze. He dropped his eyes to the stone floor, tracing the cracks with his eyes._

"_Yes," said Severus finally. "That is my job. One of them. Another one is to teach you to protect yourself."_

"_I know," said Harry, still looking at the floor. "I'm not trying to have the dreams, you know. They just happen."_

"_They should _not_ happen," said Severus. He put his hand under Harry's chin and forced him to meet his gaze. "Try to channel some of the energy you use arguing with me into your Occlumency."_

_Properly chastened, though still convinced he had not been the only one in the wrong, Harry tried again. And this time his efforts actually seemed to be working. While he could see dementors closing in on him from across the lake, he could also see Snape in front of him, muttering with his wand pointed at Harry. Harry concentrated on his professor, pushing the dementors to the edges of his mind._

"Protego!"

_Both Harry and Severus staggered with the force of the spell, and then suddenly Harry was thrust amidst memories that did not belong to him._

_A man with greasy hair and a hooked nose shouted at a cowering woman, a small dark-haired boy watching wide-eyed from the corner. The same boy was now being shaken roughly by the man, hard enough that his teeth rattled. He lay face down on a bed in a depressing-looking room, shoulders shaking as he cried into the pillow. The boy pulled a long-sleeved shirt over his head, even though the sun was shining brightly outside, covering up the bruises which decorated his pale skin. Now he tried to mount a broomstick, which bucked him off into the grass, as a girl laughed and laughed._

"_ENOUGH!"_

_It was as though Harry had been physically expelled from the memories. He fell backwards, colliding painfully with the desk, seeing stars. He did not look at his professor, unsure what to say in the face of what he had just witnessed._

"_Well," said Severus finally. "An…unorthodox approach. But obviously effective."_

"_I didn't know it would do that," said Harry in a small voice._

"_Neither did I."_

"_I didn't mean—that is—"_

"_You did exactly what I asked you to do," said Snape tightly, "expelled me from your mind. You are aware of what my childhood was like, though I never expected to have you actually witness the details."_

_Harry chanced a glance at his professor. He did not appear angry, just incredibly tired. "Was…was that your father?"_

_Severus let out a long sigh. "Yes, Harry, that was my father."_

"_And the woman was…"_

"_My mother, yes."_

_Harry reached out and touched his professor's sleeve in a gesture meant to convey what neither of them would say aloud._

_Briefly, Snape covered Harry's hand with his own. "I believe we are done for the night, Harry," he said._

_Harry nodded and pushed himself off the desk, rubbing his tailbone. _

"_Are you injured?" asked Snape._

_Harry shook his head. "I'm fine. Just bruised. You were a little…forceful."_

"_I should have been more careful. I apologize."_

"_So do I," said Harry earnestly. He picked up his bag. "Thank you for the lesson. See you tomorrow, Professor."_

"_See you tomorrow, Potter. And clear your mind before you go to sleep tonight!"_

"_I will," promised Harry. He walked to the door, opened it, and then turned back. "If you do something about your headache!" And, smirking, he left the room before his professor had time to respond._

*****CTU*****

Harry rubbed his temples, he was developing a headache of his own. The good memories were so much worse than the bad ones now that he knew…everything that he knew.

*****CTU*****

_Harry decided that the fates must finally be with him. Snape had not even gotten a chance to see how much of an emotional turmoil his mind was in before Draco Malfoy came barging in, spouting something about Umbridge and Montague and needing Snape's help. It wasn't that he didn't want to have his Occlumency lesson, he knew how important they were and he actually enjoyed spending the time with Snape, but today just was not a good day. He actually almost wished he _could_ talk about it with Snape, get some of it off his chest, but his professor had already dismissed him and left to assist Umbridge and Malfoy, so Harry picked up his schoolbag and made to leave. Something stopped him though, and he turned back to look at the Pensieve. He knew it was none of his business what thoughts and memories Snape had put in there, and he didn't want to invade the man's privacy, but he couldn't help being curious. He went over to the desk and peered down into the basin, wondering what secrets were hidden in its depths. He turned once more to go, but his bag caught on the corner of the desk. He attempted to pull it free, but it stuck fast. He tugged harder and it came away so fast that he lost his footing, arms pin-wheeling for balance. He reached out his hand to break his fall, and plunged it right into the silvery substance at the bottom of the Pensieve._

_Harry was immediately plunged into blackness, and almost as suddenly tipped out of it into what he quickly recognized as the Great Hall, apparently set up for exams. Panicking, Harry looked around for a way out, but quickly realized that he did not know how to exit the Pensieve on his own. He made to leave the room, to avoid witnessing what he had no right to witness, but his attention was caught by the boy sitting at the desk right behind where he had landed. It was Snape, and he couldn't be much older than Harry was now._

_Professor Flitwick announced five more minutes and Harry started, looking around. What he saw made his heat constrict in his chest: a boy with very untidy jet-black hair was sitting several desks away from the teenage Snape, rolling up his parchment with a flourish._

If I watch my dad instead of Snape surely I won't see anything I shouldn't see…

_He could not have been more wrong._

*****CTU*****

"_Of all the things I would have expected to find you doing, Mr. Potter, I have to say that this was not one of them."_

_Harry was frozen in horror, watching Snape's lips shake in his chalk-white face. He didn't know if he'd ever seen him this angry, or this…vulnerable._

"_Obviously you could not be content to respect my privacy," Snape hissed. "Even when I have done my utmost to extend to you that very courtesy. Well, now you know the truth about me and your _charming_ father."_

"_I didn't mean to," said Harry desperately. "I _swear_—"_

_Snape seemed not to even hear him. He shoved Harry away from him so violently that Harry lost his footing and fell. He scrambled to his feet as Snape glowered at him. "You will not repeat what you saw to anybody!"_

"_Of course not!" said Harry. "You said yourself, what happens during these lessons never leaves this room. I would never tell anyone. I didn't mean to see it myself! But I fell and I didn't know how to get out of the Pensieve and—"_

"_Leave," said Snape in a deadly cold voice. "These lessons are over."_

_Harry looked at him in shock. "Professor—"_

"_What part of over don't you understand, Potter? Now get OUT!"_

_Harry got out, his mind in painful turmoil over what he had just seen his father do in Snape's memories. He couldn't believe it, but he had to believe it, it had happened. His heart ached for the man he found more in common with every day, it ached for his vision of his father that had just been shattered, and it ached for a relationship with another father figure that he might have just ruined for good._

*****CTU*****

_The scene from the Pensieve haunted him for the next week. He was not even tempted to tell anyone, but neither could he get it out of his head. His father had been a bully, his father had bullied Snape. Just because he existed, apparently. If it had been anyone else he would have been livid. Snape certainly hadn't deserved that kind of treatment at school, especially after what he went through at home. Harry knew what it was like to live like that. But it was his father. The father he had looked up to his entire life. The father whose praises everyone had always sung. Everyone except Snape. _He could have told me exactly what my father was like to him while they were in school together, he could have told me, but he didn't. Why? Would you have believed him?_ Asked a second voice in his head. Harry had to admit that he probably wouldn't have. Now he had no choice. _

_And Snape had called his mother a mudblood. That didn't make any sense either. They had been best friends, he knew they had, so why would Snape call her that? The only other people he had heard use that word were Draco Malfoy, Voldemort, and the Death Eaters._

*****CTU*****

_Which should have set off warning bells right there_, thought Harry furiously.

*****CTU*****

_Harry desperately wanted to talk to his Potions professor about it. To try and make sense of everything he had seen, and convince Snape that he hadn't intended to see it. Hadn't wanted to see it. Wished he hadn't seen it. But the Potions Master was not talking to him, so he decided to go to the only other person who could possible throw some light on the situation. Of course, Snape would kill him if he knew Harry planned on talking about what he had seen with Sirius of all people, but, after all, it wasn't like it would be news to him, his godfather had been there after all…_

*****CTU*****

_Harry had managed to convince Sirius and Lupin not to confront Snape about discontinuing his Occlumency lessons only by agreeing to talk to Snape himself. This was easier said than done, however, and he kept putting it off. First it was because he was too keen on finding out more about the Department of Mysteries in his dreams and didn't think it wise to approach Snape with that fresh in his mind. Then soon enough O.W.L.s were nearly upon them and he simply didn't have the time. _

_If he was honest with himself he was just scared. Suspecting that Snape hated again him because he had seen the world's most confusing memory hurt, but knowing it for sure would have hurt even more._

_So things remained cold and tense and distant between them, and Harry feared very much that their relationship was irreparably damaged. He wished with all his might that he could turn back the clock and leave the Pensieve well enough alone._

******CTU*****

That was one wish that had not changed with the passage of time. Harry could not see that viewing the memory had done him one lick of good. Perhaps if the estrangement from Snape had actually been as permanent as he had begun to suspect back then… but the Department of Mysteries and its aftermath was too painful of a topic for him to contemplate right now, so soon after losing Mad-Eye and Hedwig, so he lay down and drifted off into a fitful sleep filled with Snape's rage-and-pain-filled face and young black-haired boys being taunted by faceless tormenters.

**AN: And that concludes that long-ass chapter. Next chapter we move forward to Bill & Fleur's wedding and back to the beginning of the Triwizard Tournament :)**

**I would love to hear from you guys into form of some lovely little (or not so little) reviews ;)**

**-SQ**


	7. Chapter 7: The Fourth Name

**Author's Note: So…I spent most of this past weekend watching the first twelve episodes of _Bones_. Hehe… Probably not exactly what you want to hear from me, but I just was not in a writing mood at all. I was actually in a really weird mood all weekend. This chapter isn't really as short as it may look though, it just looks super short because the last one was so bloody LONG. Now I'm waiting for my college's internet to come back up. Once I can _post_ this I hope you enjoy it!**

**-SQ**

**Disclaimer: An avid love does not a rights-holder make**

**Chapter Seven: The Fourth Name**

Harry was not particularly enjoying himself at Bill and Fleur's wedding reception. The wedding itself had gone well and had been quite beautiful, but walking around disguised and "Barny Weasley" wasn't the most comfortable experience for Harry, and neither were some of the conversations he had found himself being sucked into. Talking to Viktor Krum, who hadn't recognized him and who had seemed altogether too interested in Ginny, about the Lovegoods had been sufficiently awkward, and the way that Luna had recognized him immediately rather disconcerting. He would rather be talking to either one of them, however than be having the conversation he was currently in the middle of with Eliphas Dodge and Auntie Muriel. He had quite enough on his mind without puzzling over Dumbledore's past and being more bothered than he should be at what Dumbledore hadn't told him about it. It was these brooding thoughts that were interrupted a minute later by the sudden appearance of a shining silver Lynx Patronus which spoke in Kingsley Shacklebolt's deep voice.

"_The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming."_

*****CTU*****

The following several minutes were a blur of confusion; guests Disapparating, Death Eaters Apparating, people screaming, curses firing; chaos reigned as people ran in all directions, trying either to avoid or target the action. In the midst of it Harry and Hermione had somehow managed to find Ron. The second they did Hermione had gripped both their hands tightly and, with a whooshing sensation, Apparated the three of them away from the Burrow.

Now, a fight with a couple of Death Eaters, several anti-Snape jinxes, and a painful and sickening vision of Voldemort later, Harry lay on his back in his bed at number twelve Grimmauld Place, exhausted but with his brain too full to possibly fall asleep.

The vision of Voldemort forcing Draco Malfoy to torture Rowle, the large blonde Death Eater, seemed branded on the insides of his eyelids while Mad-Eye Moody's ghostly whisper of _"Severus Snape?"_ echoed over and over in his ears.

*****CTU*****

_The entire Great Hall stared up at the dais with a mixture of confusion and curiosity as the Goblet of Fire, which had already given Dumbledore three names and should have extinguished itself, flared again. Harry watched with everybody else as the tongue of flame flicked out once more and Dumbledore reached out to take a fourth piece of parchment from its end. The hall held its collective breath for a long moment as Dumbledore stared at the parchment in his hand. Finally the headmaster raised his head, looked out over the expectant crowd, and said two words which were to turn Harry's fourth year at Hogwarts upside down._

"Harry Potter."

*****CTU*****

_Cedric took his leave from Harry in the Great Hall. Harry stood where he was for several moments, trying to process what had just happened. His name had come out of the Goblet of Fire, he had gone back to the room with the other champions and their headmasters who had, naturally, protested his inclusion in the tournament. But Dumbledore had said he had to compete. And Moody had said…Moody had suggested that someone had put his name in the goblet in order to get him killed. Was Moody just being paranoid—a distinct possibility, given the man in question—or did his suspicions have merit? Who could have put his name into the goblet in the first place? Who would want to—?_

"_Potter!"_

_Harry jumped, his head whipping around toward the entrance to the Great Hall. The tall, dark figure of his Potions Master stood there, looking down at him. The tall, dark, incredibly angry looking figure of his Potions Master._

_Harry swallowed. He knew the look that was currently adorning his professor's face, and it did not bode well for him._

"_Er, hello Professor?"_

_With two strides of his long legs, Professor Snape had reached the fourteen-year-old in the middle of the entrance hall. Obsidian eyes flashing, he grabbed Harry by the arm and marched him toward the entrance to the dungeons._

"_Professor—" Harry started, but the look that the Potions Master cast him had him swallowing the rest of his words as he half-jogged to keep up with the tall man's long strides._

_Snape did not speak until they had reached his office. He threw open the door, deposited Harry roughly into a chair, slammed the door shut with a flick of his wand, and spun to face Harry once more, uttering one, slicing word: _"Explain."

"_Er," said Harry, "explain what, Sir?_

"Explain how your name got inside the Goblet of Fire!"

"_I don't know, Professor."_

"_You don't know?" spat Snape incredulously. "You don't know how your name came to be inside of the Goblet of Fire?"_

"_No, I don't!" said Harry indignantly. Why didn't anyone believe him?_

"_Do you have any _idea_ how dangerous this is, Potter?" hissed Snape, pacing back and forth across the room. "You are fourteen years old. You are in no way qualified to compete in such a competition. You of all people should recognize the foolishness of such useless—"_

"_I know!" said Harry angrily. "I didn't _do_ it, okay? Sure I _thought_ about it, but I never actually seriously considered putting my name in. Do you really think I'm _that_ stupid? I don't know how my name got in there, but I certainly didn't do it." He glared at his professor._

_Snape looked back at him with narrowed eyes. "You didn't do it?"_

_Harry shook his head. "I just said that, didn't I? Do you think I'd lie to you?" He snorted. "I'd like to keep my hide intact, thanks."_

"_I would hope that you would have more sense than that," conceded Severus. "But how else would your name have gotten in?"_

_Harry fidgeted._

"_Well? I'm waiting."_

"_Moody said…Moody said that maybe someone did it to try to kill me," said Harry, feeling foolish_

_Severus abruptly stopped his pacing. "Excuse me?"_

"_Moody said—"_

"_I heard what you said." Snape ran a hand over his face._

"_It might just be Moody being paranoid," said Harry. "I mean, it could just be a practical joke. You know, make the Boy who Lived look like a fool. If someone put my name in to see me make a fool of myself they're likely to get their wish. But to _kill_ me? Does anyone really want me dead?"_

_Snape stared at him. "Do you honestly need to ask that question?"_

_Harry had to admit that he didn't. "But how could Voldemort have possibly gotten my name into the Goblet of Fire? He's supposed to be in hiding far away…"_

"_Over the summer," said Snape, bending down to look Harry in the eye. "You had a dream. A dream wherein you saw the Dark Lord and Peter Pettigrew planning to kill you."_

_Harry nodded. _

"_And someone cast the Dark Mark in the sky at the World Cup."_

"_Does that mean—?"_

"_I am not sure what it means," said Severus tiredly. "But I am sure that you need to be very careful. The Triwizard Tournament is no laughing matter."_

"_You really believe I didn't put my name it?" asked Harry._

_His Potions Master sighed and nodded. "Yes, Harry, the more I think about it, the less likely the possibility seems. Whoever put your name it obviously found a way to make sure you were chosen in addition to the three school champions. I am afraid my previous condemnation of your actions was…hasty and ill-advised."_

_Harry smiled slightly. "It's okay, Professor. I know you were only worried."_

_Severus snorted but did not refute the statement. "You have an annoying propensity for attracting trouble, Potter," he said, rubbing his temples._

"_Don't I know it," said Harry ruefully._

"Promise_ me you'll be careful, Harry," said Snape, gripping Harry's shoulder tightly. "If the Dark Lord is involved in some way you are in very real danger. And even if he is not, these tasks will be neither safe nor easy, I am certain. I have already had one scare over your well-being this year, and term had not even started. I feel no need to repeat the experience." He glared at the wall. "If I find out who did this…"_

_Harry smiled again, though he was well aware of the gravity of the situation. "I'll be careful, Professor, I promise. May I go to bed now?"_

_Snape gave him a curt nod. "You may. Do not think being a champion exempts you from doing your Potions homework," he added pointedly._

_Harry snorted. "Believe me, Professor, I know you better than that."_

_Severus had to admit that he did._

_*****CTU*****_

_Harry wished he had never heard of Rita Skeeter or the blasted Triwizard Tournament. Now, in addition to Ron not talking to him, Hermione attempting to reconcile them, and people either cheering or booing him at regular intervals, the Slytherins were quoting Rita Skeeter's stupid article to him every time he set foot in the corridors and he was making an even greater fool of himself by snapping at people who only wanted to tell him he had dropped his quill. Very pretty female people by the name of Cho Chang. _

_Fuming, not paying attention to where his feet were taking him, Harry suddenly found himself outside the door of Snape's office. He hesitated, unsure of what to do. He knew no one would look for him here, and he very much wanted to get away from everything at the moment, but he also knew that the Potions Master would hardly take kindly to being interrupted in the middle of whatever he was doing. Before Harry had made up his mind whether to knock or turn around and go back up the stairs, the office door opened and Harry was put face-to-face with his professor, whose arms were full of a large cardboard box containing an assortment of beakers, jars, and phials._

_The tall man raised a thin eyebrow. "Well hello, Harry. To what do I owe the honor of a visit by one of the Hogwarts Champions?"_

_Harry groaned. "Please don't, Professor. I'm trying to get away from all of that."_

"_The extra attention not sitting well with you?" asked Snape, shifting the box in his arms to rest against his hip._

"_You know it's not," said Harry._

"_I take it that Skeeter woman's article hasn't improved matters," remarked Severus._

"_I didn't _say_ those things, damnit!" said Harry angrily._

_Snape raised an eyebrow. "Language, Potter," he said mildly. "It did seem rather…sensationalized."_

"'_Rather sensationalized'?" said Harry. "It's a load of hippogriff manure!"_

"Language_, Mr. Potter." He hefted the box once more. "Rita Skeeter," he added with a sneer, "has never been good for anything but proliferating highly erroneous gossip. Only a fool would hold anything written by her at any value."_

"_It's the students in your house who won't leave me alone about it," muttered Harry resentfully._

_Severus pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand. "I cannot play nursemaid to every Slytherin who says something less than complementary towards another student; I would spend all my time handing out detentions. If they physically hurt you, come to me and I will deal with them accordingly. In the meantime…you are welcome to take respite from the repercussions of Rita Skeeter's 'load of hippogriff manure' in my office until dinner." Harry smiled his thanks, stifling a snort at Snape's quotation of him. _

"_I shall be back as soon as I deliver these potions to Madam Pomfrey," continued the Potions Master. "While you are here I suggest you make yourself useful. There is a stack of phials there that need putting away."_

"_Yes, sir," said Harry. "Thank you, sir."_

"_You may thank me by shelving those phials," was Severus's deadpan response._

*****CTU*****

"_Potter, the champions have to come down onto the grounds now… You have to get ready for your first task."_

"_Okay." _

_Harry felt his stomach lurch unpleasantly and he fought to hold onto the lunch he had just eaten as he stood and followed Professor McGongall out of the Great Hall. As they walked, she spoke, giving him advice, asking if he was alright, behaving on the whole in a rather un-McGongall-like fashion. Harry was only half listening. The beating of his heart in his ears seemed to make all other sounds distant and muffled._

"_Professor McGongall, a moment if you please."_

_Harry looked up to find Snape standing in the corridor in front of them._

"_Mr. Potter is rather in a hurry…"_

"_This will not take long."_

_Harry looked curiously at his Potions professor as the man approached him. "Did you want something, sir?"_

"_Yes, Harry," said Snape. "I wished to say…good luck."_

"_Thank you, sir," said Harry with some surprise._

"_Yes, well," said Severus gruffly. "Just _try_ not to make a fool of yourself out there."_

_It was only after the Potions Master had disappeared that Harry realized he had been the only one not to ask Harry if he was fine. Seeing as Harry couldn't remember ever feeling less fine in his life, he was grateful for the respite from answering the question._

_Harry continued toward the grounds with Professor McGongall, feeling very slightly better after his encounter with Snape. It was difficult to keep his spirits up, however, as he entered the large tent which had been erected in front of the dragon enclosure and Ludo Bagman proceeded to explain the specifics of the task. Steel an egg from a dragon? Harry didn't know too much about dragons, but from what he did know, that seemed like a monumentally bad idea._

_Glancing around, Harry saw that the other champions looked just about as apprehensive as he felt. But they were all three years older than him and had actually volunteered for this. Some unknown person had put Harry up for it without his knowledge or consent. Right now Moody's 'get-him-killed' theory was seeming more and more likely._

_One by one the other champions went outside the tent to face their dragons. Harry tried not to listen to the collected gasps, cries, cheers, and shouts that accompanied each of their attempts with the dragons, but that was easier said than done._

_Finally, it was Harry's turn._

*****CTU*****

_Harry sat inside the tent, his veins coursing with adrenaline. He couldn't believe it, it seemed unreal. He had gotten past the dragon. He had secured the egg. He had not died. At this point he didn't really care what his score was, he was simply happy to be alive._

_The tent flap snapped open, emitting a tall, dark-haired, billowing-robed figure inside._

"_Harry."_

_Harry smiled lopsidedly up at his professor. "Hello, professor."_

_Snape pulled out his wand and did a cursory check on Harry, assessing for any damage to his person despite his protests that Madam Pomfrey had already taken care of them. When he was done the Potions Master shoved his wand back inside his robes and gripped Harry's shoulders, peering into his face as though to asses that the boy still possessed all his faculties._

"_Dragons," spat Snape in disgust, sounding rather like Madam Pomfrey had a few minutes earlier. He stood up. "As if you weren't in enough danger already." He began to pace, hand pressed to his temple. "Nearly gave me a heart attack…"_

_Harry stood up and wrapped his arms briefly around his professor's waist. "Professor, sir, I'm okay."_

_Severus stopped and looked down at Harry, one corner of his mouth quirking in the suggestion of a smile. "You had better be."_

_There was a sound behind them and both of them looked toward the entrance to the tent. Ron and Hermione were standing there, looking slightly awkward._

"_I think your friends would like a word with you," Snape observed, stepping back._

_Harry nodded. "See you later, Professor."_

"_Indeed."_

*****CTU*****

Harry woke up. The room around him was still pitch black. He could hear Ron snoring in the other bed. Bloody dreams. It was this stupid house, bringing back memories that should have been buried. He licked his lips and tasted salt. Angrily, he dashed the tears away from his face and buried it resolutely in his pillow. Just because he had dreamed about being fourteen didn't mean that he had to act like it. And Snape certainly wasn't worth crying over.

**AN: I debated putting in a scene where Severus railed at Dumbledore about Harry being in the tournament (the reason for his late departure from the Great Hall), but it just wouldn't have been right because unless clearly shown otherwise this fic is from Harry's POV. Harry wouldn't be remembering/dreaming about something he never saw/knew had happened. Know that Severus did confront Dumbledore about it and got the same answer that everyone else did: Harry's name came out of the Goblet, he had to compete.**

**Next up, Harry finds out unpleasant things about Severus in both time periods.**

**In the meantime, review? ;)**

**-SQ**


	8. Chapter 8: Unpleasant News

**Author's Note: Argh! This chapter took me a long time to write, sorry! Okay, so it took my 3 days to actually write it, which is still kind of long for my chapters, and it also took me a while to find the time to do it. Between being a beta & my other fics & _Bones_ & homework & work & friends & just generally getting distracted… Anyway, I hope you enjoy the chapter. It's a long one.**

**-SQ**

**Disclaimer: Owning several copies of the books does not equal owning the rights.**

**Chapter Eight: Unpleasant News**

Coils of rage writhed in Harry's stomach as he looked down at the headline on the copy of the _Daily Prophet_ in front of him.

SEVERUS SNAPE CONFIRMED AS HOGWARTS HEADMASTER

The sickened feeling only grew as Hermione read the article out loud. It listed two more Death Eaters as recent appointment to the Hogwarts faculty, but what really got Harry was Snape. Snape was headmaster. Snape who had tricked him into trusting him, tricked them all into trusting him. Snape, who had been privy to more private and professional secrets than perhaps anyone else. Snape, who had betrayed them all and was now providing Voldemort with these very secrets. Snape, who had _murdered_ Dumbledore. Snape now had his job. It was more than Harry could stomach.

"Harry?" said Ron. "Mate, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Harry mumbled.

"Of course he's not okay," said Hermione impatiently. "But you've really got to stop thinking about Snape like that, Harry."

"Like what?"

"Like he's your father who you've lost all over again."

"He's not my father!" snapped Harry. "He is nothing like my father!" He didn't like to think about Snape in relation to his father. Didn't like to think about what he had seen in the Pensieve, wonder whether or not Snape had deserved it…

"Well of course not," said Hermione calmly. "I only meant that he was a sort of father figure to you, wasn't he? And it was an awful blow when you found out what he'd really been doing. But all of that was a lie, Harry. It was never really like that between the two of you. You can't have lost something if it was never there to begin with."

"I know," said Harry shortly. And he did. But that didn't stop the ache that rose in his chest whenever he thought about Snape and his betrayal. Snape had helped him, Snape had cared about him, Snape had _understood_ him… Except, like Hermione had said, it had all been a lie.

Suddenly Hermione jumped up from the table, nearly knocking over her chair, and Harry's and Ron's too. "Merlin's pants!"

"Jeez, Hermione!" said Harry.

"Sorry!" she shouted over her shoulder as she ran out of the room. "I'll be back in a minute!"

"'Merlin's Pants'?" said Ron, straightening himself with an amused expression on his face. "She must be upset."

As it turned out, Hermione had a good reason for being upset. She had remembered the presence of Phineas Nigellus Black's portrait in the room upstairs, and its corresponding frame in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts. Not something you wanted to leave lying around with Voldemort's favorite Death Eater as headmaster.

Harry and Hermione reported to Ron on what they had seen at the Ministry that day (nothing worth noting except that Mr. Weasley still seemed to be okay) and then Harry tuned out as Ron and Hermione engaged in a debate about the importance of details. Frankly, Harry was sick of it. He just wanted it to be over. All this tension, all this _waiting_. That was the worst. He didn't think he could take much more waiting.

"I think we should do it tomorrow."

That shut both of them up immediately.

"What?"

"You can't be serious."

"I am," said Harry, sounding much calmer than he felt. In the same even tone he explained his reasoning, that waiting longer wasn't going to make them any more prepared than they already were, that it could actually hurt rather than help them. They knew everything they needed to know to pull it off, everything else was up to skill and luck. Mostly luck, yes, but that wasn't going to change because they waited around for an extra month or two.

By the end of dinner it was settled. They would try to retrieve the locket from Umbridge at the Ministry of Magic tomorrow.

*****CTU*****

It was the night before they were to be sneaking into the Ministry to attempt to steal a Horcrux from someone who was nearly as bad as a Death Eater. They needed to have all their wits about them tomorrow, so, naturally, Harry was unable to sleep. It wasn't an unusual occurrence, and it had only gotten worse after the events at the end of last year, but Harry would have liked just once to be able to fall asleep instantaneously like Ron seemed to be able to. Not that his friend knew about his insomnia. No one did. Well, no, one person did, but thinking about Snape certainly wasn't going to help him fall asleep. He cast his mind about for another topic and it fell on perhaps the third-to-last thing he wanted to think about right now, the first being Voldemort and the second being Snape: Remus Lupin.

He hadn't heard from his former Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher since they had fought in number twelve Grimmauld Place's kitchen the previous month. He didn't regret what he had said that day—he couldn't let Remus abandon his wife and child as Harry himself had been abandoned so many times, intentionally and not—but he did regret the necessity of saying them, and the wedge it had driven in between him and the last of his father's best friends. He just hoped that the distance wasn't permanent.

His thoughts strayed back to the article declaring Snape as the new Headmaster of Hogwarts. It wasn't the first time that he had received unpleasant news about his ex-Potions master. He still remembered the shock of finding out that the man had been a Death Eater during the First Wizarding War…

*****CTU*****

"_Harry! _Harry!_"_

_Harry's opened his eyes and drew his hands away from his face. He was on his back on the floor of Professor Trelawney's classroom with the entire class staring down at him with wide, frightened eyes. His scar felt as though it were on fire. Turning his head, he realized that Ron was kneeling next to him, a terrified expression on his pale face._

"_You all right?"_

"_Of course he isn't!" exclaimed Professor Trelawney excitedly before Harry had a change to respond. Her enormous bug-like eyes loomed above him as she bombarded him with questions that barely penetrated his pain-hazed brain._

"_Nothing," said Harry, pushing himself up with his hands. "It was nothing." He swallowed, his eyes darting to his left and right, assuring himself that Voldemort wasn't lurking somewhere in the shadows._

"_You were clutching your scar!" said Professor Trelawney, who looked like she was about to burst with barely contained glee. "You were rolling on the floor, clutching your scar! Come now, Potter, I have experience in these matters!"_

"_I need to go to the hospital wing, I think," said Harry as steadily as he could, though that wasn't at all the destination he had in mind. "Bad headache."_

_Professor Trelawney launched into another spiel about Harry and seeing and clairvoyant vibrations, but he cut her off._

"_I don't want to see anything except a headache cure."_

_The rest of the class took a step back when he stood up, as though frightened of him. He couldn't really blame them._

_He muttered a hasty goodbye to Ron, grabbed his bag, and left Professor Trelawney looking after him in evident frustration._

_Harry descended the ladder from the trapdoor and set off at a jog. He had told Professor Trelawney that he was going to the hospital wing, but that had been a lie. Sirius had told him to go to Professor Dumbledore if his scar hurt again, but that wasn't where he was headed either. His pounding feet took him through the largely deserted corridors, down several staircases, through a few secret passageways, and to the entrance to the dungeons. He was halfway to Snape's office when it occurred to him that the Potions professor was most likely in the middle of a class. His feet slowed and he hesitated outside the door to the Potions classroom. He hardly thought his professor would take kindly to be interrupted in the middle of a lesson. On the other hand, Snape had said that he wanted to know if Harry had any more dreams like the one he had had at his house over the summer…_

_Hesitantly, Harry tapped his knuckles against the classroom door and opened it wide enough for him to stick his head inside._

"_Er…Professor Snape…can I talk to you for a minute?"_

_The eyes of two dozen second years turned to stare at him curiously. Snape's eyebrows rose slowly to his hairline._

"_Is this important, Potter?"_

"_It might be."_

_Snape pursed his lips and turned his attention back to his students. "If any of you imbecils manages to blow up his cauldron while I am gone he or she will receive a week's worth of detention and a zero for the day." He stared at them for another moment to make sure his words had sunk in and then followed Harry out into the corridor._

"_What is it, Harry?" he asked as soon as the door had shut behind him. "You're as white as a sheet."_

_Harry swallowed, resisting the urge to lean against his professor's comforting form. "I was in Divination and I—er—fell asleep…" he looked sideways at Snape, but when no reprimand came he ploughed ahead. "I had a dream, like the one I had back at your house. Voldemort was there, and his snake. He was torturing Wormtail… and then he got an owl and…apparently it was good news, because he told Wormtail that…that his blunder hadn't ruined everything. Said someone was dead—I'm not sure who—and that he wouldn't be feeding Wormtail to the snake. I think he wants to feed me to it instead… Then he did the Cruciatus Curse on Wormtail and my scar hurt and—and I woke up…" he trailed off, looking up into his professor's inscrutable dark eyes._

_Severus laid a large hand on Harry's shoulder. "Take a deep breath, Harry," he said calmly. "You are all right."_

"_But Voldemort—"_

"_Breathe."_

_Harry breathed._

"_That's better." Severus considered the teenager in front of him. "Why did you not go to Professor Dumbledore with this information?"_

_Harry shuffled his feet, suddenly feeling silly and ashamed. "I don't know. I just…I needed to tell someone and I thought of you…"_

_The hint of while might have been a smile tugged at the corner of Snape's stoic mouth. "Very well. I am flattered, but unfortunately I have a class to teach at the moment. Go to the headmaster. I will meet you there as soon as possible."_

_Harry nodded, giving the man a slight smile of his own. "Okay. Thanks."_

_Severus squeezed his shoulder and then gave him a push up the corridor. "Go."_

_*****CTU*****_

_Now Harry was waiting in Dumbledore's office for the headmaster to return. His conversation with Snape and the atmosphere of Dumbledore's office had calmed his nerves to the point where he was able to look around the room with a portion of his normal interest. He saw the Sorting hat perched on a shelf next to a glass case displaying the ruby-set sword of Godric Gryffindor. A glimmer of silvery light reflecting off the glass surface caught his eye and he turned in his seat in an attempt to locate its source. A black cabinet stood against the wall behind him, its door slightly ajar. It was from this that the silvery light emanated. Harry stood and, after a moment of hesitation, crossed the room to get a better look at the contents of the cabinet._

_A shallow stone basin engraved with unfamiliar runes and symbols seemed to be the source of the light. Or, more specifically, its contents were giving off the ethereal glow that had caught Harry's eye._

_Harry bent closer to the substance, trying to determine whether it was liquid or gas or something in between. He took out his wand with the intention of prodding the stuff, since he knew that touching it with his bare skin was probably a bad idea. He paused with his wand hovering an inch above the surface. Snape was fond of saying that he was often _dangerously_ curious, and he had a sneaking suspicion that this was one of those times, but in the end the opportunity was too enticing to pass up. He poked at the silvery gas/liquid with the tip of his wand._

_Harry moved even closer to the surface of the substance, which had begun to swirl very fast. As he watched, it coalesced into a transparent glass-like surface, like a mirror. Or a window…_

_From the second he saw the room inside the basin he was at the mercy of his "dangerous curiosity". It was a matter of moments before he found himself inside the circular court room, watching the proceedings from next to a younger version of Dumbledore who seemed as oblivious to his presence as the rest of the room's serious-looking occupants._

_He watched as Karkaroff rattled off the names of people he claimed were Death Eaters._

_Dolohov, Rosier, Travers, Mulciber, Rookwood…_

_Harry's head snapped up so fast he nearly got whiplash. Surely he had heard wrong, surely Karkaroff hadn't said—_

"_Severus Snape!"_

"_Snape has been cleared by this council," said Barty Crouch, and Harry breathed again. "He has been vouched for by Albus Dumbledore."_

"_No!" Karkaroff shouted, the chains binding him to the chair rattling alarmingly. "I assure you! Severus Snape is a Death Eater!"_

No,_ thought Harry._ No, you're wrong. He can't be.

_Beside Harry the figure of Dumbledore had risen to his feet. "I have given evidence already on this matter," he stated, addressing the entire assembly. "Severus Snape was indeed a Death Eater. However, he rejoined our side before Lord Voldemort's downfall and turned spy for us, at great personal risk. He is now no more a Death Eater than I am."_

_The trial ended and the scene faded, but Harry's brain was still stuck on one phrase. _Severus Snape was indeed a Death Eater. Severus Snape was indeed a Death Eater…

_The revelation continued to occupy his mind as he watched the following trials. Snape had been a Death Eater. Snape had worked for Voldemort, the wizard who had killed his parents, the wizard who was still trying to kill him. Yes, Dumbledore had said that Snape had changed sides before the war had ended, but not everyone else had seemed as confident in Snape's changed allegiance as the headmaster had. And the fact that he _had_ been a Death Eater… No wonder Moody didn't like him, and he seemed to know Karkaroff—the two of them had been Death Eaters together! And if he had been a Death Eater and then switched sides, the question begged to be asked: Why? What had made him change his allegiance? What had made him become a Death Eater in the first place?_

_Harry's attention was pulled once more fully to the scene at hand by the third trial. He looked between the group of people on the floor below and Mr. Crouch sitting steadfastly in his seat, realizing quickly that one of the people in chains below was Mr. Crouch's own son. As he was still processing this information, and the heart-rending pleas coming from Mr. Crouch's son, he was startled to hear the name 'Longbottom' issue from Crouch Sr.'s lips._

_Dementors poured into the room. Crouch was screaming, his son was crying, and Harry was still trying to make sense of all that he had seen and heard._

"_I think, Harry, it is time to return to my office."_

_Harry started and looked to his left. A second Ablus Dumbledore stood there, and this one was looking right at him._

_Moments later they were both back in Dumbledore's present-day office and questions and apologies were pouring from Harry's mouth in jumbled, rapid succession._

_What interested Harry most however, once Dumbledore had explained what the substance he had fallen into had been, was the distressing information he had learned about Snape._

"_Er, Professor…when I was in there I saw…that is…was Snape really a Death Eater?"_

_Dumbledore surveyed Harry over his long, crooked nose._

_Instead of answering he put his wand to his temple. When he withdrew it a strand of the same silvery substance as filled the Pensieve came with it. He deposited this into the Pensieve and peered down at it. Harry was shocked to see his own face shimmering there. Dumbledore swirled the contents gently and Harry's face became Snape's and the Potions master's voice filled the room._

"_It's coming back…Karkaroff's too…stronger and clearer than ever…"_

"_That" said Dumbledore finally, as Snape's face sank back into the surface of the Headmaster's thoughts, "is a question you are going to have to ask Professor Snape."_

_*****CTU*****_

_True to his word, Snape knocked on the door of Dumbledore's office as Dumbledore was finishing telling Harry about the Longbottoms._

"_Come in," said Dumbledore. "Ah, Severus."_

_Snape gave Dumbledore a curt nod. "Potter has told you of his dream?"_

"_He has," confirmed Dumbledore. "And I have told him some of my suspicions."_

_Snape nodded again as though this meant something to him._

"_I am afraid I have some business to attend to," said Dumbledore. "You are free to leave, Harry."_

_Harry stood but then hesitated, looking at Snape._

"_Severus," said Dumbledore, "you are also dismissed."_

_Snape gave the headmaster another nod and followed Harry out of the room._

_Neither of them spoke until they had descended the spiral staircase and passed by the two gargoyles guarding the entrance to the headmaster's office. Then Harry cleared his throat._

"_Erm, Professor…can I ask you a question?"_

"_I believe you already have.,"_

"_Er, I mean another question."_

"_You may."_

_Harry hesitated, unsure how to pose the question that was burning in his mind._

"_Well, Potter? I'm waiting."_

"_Can we…can we go to your office first?"_

_Snape turned to look at him with his brows raised. "We can…"_

_They walked in silence again until they reached Snape's office in the dungeons. He unlocked the door, let them both in, and motioned Harry to sit in the chair facing his desk._

"_Now," he said, taking his own seat at the desk, "what is it you wanted to ask me, Harry?"_

_Harry swallowed, his eyes fixed on the wood grain on the desk in front of him. "While I was in Dumbledore's office—"_

"—Professor_ Dumbledore—"_

"—_I saw this light and got curious—"_

"_Why am I not surprised?"_

"_And it was something called a Pensieve, it had Professor Dumbledore's thoughts and—and memories in it. I saw…I saw some trials in a courtroom. One of them was for Karkaroff, you know, the Durmstrang headmaster. He was trying to make a deal with the Ministry by giving them names of other Death Eaters…" Harry tore his eyes away from the desk and forced himself to look at his professor. "He said…he said you were a Death Eater." Snape looked back at him with expressionless black eyes. Harry swallowed. "Were you…?"_

_Snape sighed and rubbed his forehead with his first two fingers. "I suppose I should have expected you to find out sooner or later. You really are too curious for your own good."_

"_So…so you _were_ a Death Eater?"_

"_Yes," said Snape heavily. His fingers strayed to his left forearm. "I was. I assure you it is not something that I am proud of."_

"Why?"

"_I think the reasons why I am not proud of the fact that I was a Death Eater would be fairly obvious, Harry."_

"_No, I mean, why were you a Death Eater in the first place?"_

_Snape rubbed his forehead again. "I did not have a pleasant youth, Harry. I am not saying that that is an excuse, but it is something of a reason, as inadequate as it is. My mother taught me an interest in the Dark Arts from a young age. I was in Slytherin, surrounded by people with similar dark interests and ambitions. I was angry, hurt, and alone. The Death Eaters offered me something to belong to and the Dark Lord offered me a way to get revenge on the people who had made my life a living hell during my years at Hogwarts."_

"_You weren't alone," said Harry hotly. "You had my mother."_

_A muscle worked in Snape's jaw. "Your mother and I were…no longer close by that time."_

"_Why not?" asked Harry._

"_People grow apart." The pain was evident in the Potions master's voice. "We both made choices that led us down different paths."_

_Harry stared at his hands, trying to process the fact that the man who, in the past year, he had come to think of as something akin to a father had once been a Death Eater._

"_Harry. Harry, look at me." Reluctantly, Harry looked. "Of all the choices I have made in my life, joining the Death Eaters is one of the ones I regret the most. I live with that regret every day of my life."_

_Harry nodded slowly, swallowing against a sudden lump in his throat._

_Severus stood and moved around so that he was standing next to Harry's chair. "Harry?"_

"_You _worked_ for him."_

"_I know."_

"_He's a murderer!"_

"_I know."_

"_He killed my parents!"_

"_I know."_

"_What made you stop?"_

_Severus laid a hand on Harry's shoulder. "The Dark Lord's cause was wrong. What we were doing was wrong. And I could never be loyal to someone who would hurt your mother."_

"_I thought you said you two grew apart."_

"_We did. That doesn't mean I stopped caring for her."_

_Tears prickled Harry's eyes and he pressed his face against Snape's robes to keep the man from seeing them._

_Snape kept his hand resting wordlessly on Harry's shoulder and let him cry._

****CTU****

Harry scrubbed his hand angrily over his prickling eyes. He should have known. He should have known then. Once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater. And Snape had admitted that he had been a Death Eater. Didn't he always refer to Voldemort as the "Dark Lord"? Who besides his Death Eaters did that? No one, that's who. But no, Harry had refused to see the signs, even when they were staring him right in the face…

*****CTU*****

_At the moment Harry was feeling both very annoyed and very stupid. Of all the useless, idiotic things to have done… Merlin, he sounded like Snape._

_Harry wondered how long it would take for people to realize he was missing. Long enough for the train to take his bleeding, paralyzed, invisible self halfway back to London. And he hadn't even heard anything from Malfoy to make his predicament worth his while._

_The train's engine rumbled to life, jostling Harry about. His stomach sank. He was really going to ride like this all the way back to London with no one the wiser. _

_Suddenly the Invisibility Cloak was lifted off of him and Tonks's face appeared in his line of vision. There was flash of light and he could move again._

"_Wotcher, Harry"_

"_Thanks." Harry stood up up and wiped the blood off of his face where Malfoy had stepped on it._

_The train whistled and began to move. "We'd better get out of here quickly," said Tonks. "Come on, we'll jump."_

_The two of them hurried to the door and leapt onto the platform. Behind them the train gathered speed and whisked away out of sight. That had been close._

_Harry looked from the train to Tonks, feeling distinctly embarrassed at the predicament she had rescued him from. She handed him his Invisibility Cloak and asked, "Who did it?"_

"_Draco Malfoy," said Harry, glowering._

_After Tonks, who still looked much plainer and more serious than usual, had fixed Harry's nose and sent her Patronus on ahead, the two of them started up toward the school, Tonks explaining unsmilingly how she had come to be there and to find him. Then they lapsed into a somber silence._

_When the two of them reached the gates at the entrance to the Hogwarts grounds they found them to be locked. Harry was wondering with annoyance just how Tonks expected him to get inside when he noticed a lantern bobbing its way toward them. As it grew closer, Harry realized that the lantern was being born by none other than Severus Snape._

"_Nice of you to turn up, Potter," said Snape, tapping the gates with his wand so that they swung open to admit Harry. "Although you have evidently decided that the wearing of school robes would detract from your appearance."_

_Harry, who was not in the mood for Snape's twisted sense of humor, just glowered._

_Snape cocked a brow at his expression. "You may go, Nymphadora. Potter is quite safe in my hands." Tonks nodded. "Oh," added Snape. "I couldn't help but notice your new Patronus. I can't say I think much of your taste, but to each his own I suppose."_

_Tonks said nothing as Snape shut the gates and motioned for Harry to follow him up to the castle._

"_Well, Harry," said Snape, "care to explain your tardiness? Decided to be fashionably late today?"_

"_That's not what I wanted and you know it," snapped Harry._

"_Are you talking back to me?"_

"_I'm not in the mood for this, okay, _sir_?" said Harry._

_Severus stopped and turned to look at him. "Harry, why is there blood on your face?"_

"_Because Malfoy stepped on it," said Harry shortly._

"_And why would he do that?"_

"_I dunno, maybe because he hates me?" said Harry sarcastically._

"_For Mr. Malfoy to step on your face you would have had to be—"_

"_On the floor, yes, I know," said Harry. "I don't want to talk about it, okay?"_

"_Are you injured?"_

"_No. Tonks fixed my nose."_

_Severus put a hand on Harry's shoulder and steered him toward the school once more. "Fighting on the train is generally frowned upon, Harry. In fact I believe it is against the rules."_

"_I wasn't—" started Harry indignantly._

"_Perhaps not, but I know you too well to think that you weren't doing something to provoke Mr. Malfoy into his little act of hostility."_

_Harry was silent, which was confirmation enough for Professor Snape._

"_Are you going to deduct house points?" said Harry. "'Cause that would really just make my day."_

"_If I were to deduct points from you for fighting with Mr. Malfoy—"_

"_I wasn't fighting—!"_

"I would also_ have to deduct points from Mr. Malfoy for fighting with you," continued Snape. "And I am not feeling quite in the mood to deduct points from my own house today."_

_Harry remembered at time when Snape would have had no problems taking points away from him and not Malfoy, even if they had both been equally at fault, but that time had passed a long time ago._

"_So, tell me, were you simply too embarrassed to show your face after it had been stepped on or…?"_

"_He put the body-bind curse on me."_

"_I see," said Severus. "And here I was thinking that you wanted to make an entrance, and with no flying car available you decided that bursting into the Great Hall halfway through the feast ought to create quite a dramatic effect."_

_Harry rolled his eyes. "Haha, very funny."_

"_I rather thought so."_

_Harry couldn't help it, the corners of his mouth twitched upward in a reluctant smile._

"_That's better," said Snape in satisfaction. "Now I suggest that you go inside and change. Unless you plan on entering the Great Hall looking like that."_

"_No, sir," said Harry emphatically._

*****CTU*****

Harry had to give Snape one thing, he did have great acting skills. Then again, what else could you expect from Voldemort's number one spy?

*****CTU*****

_Harry did not much care about Professor Trelawney and her ramblings about Divination. While he knew firsthand that real prophesies did indeed exist, everything that Professor Trelawney taught in her class was a load of bunk. He began to pay attention, however, when she started recounting her first interview with Professor Dumbledore. He knew very well what had happened during that interview, better, it seemed, than Professor Trelawney did herself. Professor Dumbledore had told him the story. The headmaster had been interviewing Professor Trelawney when she had made the Prophesy that had changed his life forever._

"…_but then we were rudely interrupted by Severus Snape!"_

_Harry jerked violently, his gaze focusing sharply on his professor. "Excuse me?"_

"_Yes, there was commotion outside the door and it flew open, and that rather uncouth barman was standing with Snape…"_

_Professor Trelawney kept speaking but Harry didn't hear her. His mind was frozen on the information she had just unwittingly given him. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. He felt as if the weight of the knowledge were crushing him into the ground, cruelly smothering him with the unintentional revelation of what had been kept from him for so long. By people he had trusted. By someone he _loved_._

_Snape. It had been Snape. Snape, who had admitted in Harry's fourth year to being a former Death Eater, had overheard Professor Trelawney that day. Snape had told Voldemort about the Prophesy. Snape was the reason Voldemort had gone after him, had tried to kill him, had murdered his parents…_

"_Harry?" said Professor Trelawney, who had finally realized that he was no longer following her._

"_I have to go," he said, his voice sounding raw and guttural._

"_But we were going to go to the headmaster's office together, I was going to tell him—"_

"_You go!" shouted Harry. "I have something to do!"_

_He took off in the opposite direction, leaving a very confused Professor Trelawney in his wake. He was supposed to be going to Dumbledore's office; the headmaster had asked him to come immediately. But right now Harry didn't care. He didn't care about anything but confronting Snape with the information he had just found out. Let him explain this!_

Merlin, please let him explain this…

_Harry ran past other students in the corridors, heedless of their curious and askance glances. He arrived at the door to Snape's office and burst through it without even knocking. The Potions master was sitting at his desk, grading papers. He looked up as Harry entered, surprise, annoyance, and then alarm flickering across his features in the span of a second. He rose from his chair rapidly, taking a step toward Harry._

"_Harry, what is the matter? Has something happened? Is—"_

"_It was you!" snarled Harry, his face contorted in rage. "It was _you_! You told Voldemort the prophesy. You listened outside the door! Professor Trelawney told me! _You got my parents killed!_"_

_Harry's face contorted even more in an effort not to cry. The man in front of him stood very still; not a muscle moved. But Harry saw his face drain of what little color it contained. For a moment it looked as though he was going to faint, or be sick. Then he swallowed and said in a voice that was barely above a whisper. "When did you find this out?"_

"_Just now!" screamed Harry. "Professor Trelawney told me! YOU'RE THE REASON MY PARENTS ARE DEAD AND YOU NEVER EVEN BOTHERED TO TELL ME!"_

_A sob tore through Harry's chest and he looked away, kicking savagely at Snape's desk._

"_Harry—"_

"_NO!" shouted Harry. "Why would you do that? SHE WAS YOUR FRIEND!" First Pettigrew, now Snape, did _all_ of his parents' friends betray them?_

"_I didn't know," said Snape. "I didn't know the prophesy was about her. About you. I never wanted—"_

"_You hated my dad, didn't you?" accused Harry. "Just like you hated Sirius! Well, now they're both dead, are you happy?"_

"_No," said Severus. "I never wanted any of them to die."_

"_Then why tell Voldemort about the prophesy! ?"_

"_I DIDN'T KNOW!" shouted Snape. "I didn't know it meant Lily's son. As soon as I found out I tried…I _tried_…" He sunk back into his chair, his head in his hands. "I never wanted her dead…I would have done anything…anything…"_

_Harry's rage slowly drained out of him as he watched the unexpected sight of his professor breaking down in front of him. As though magnetically drawn, he moved forward until he was standing beside the chair._

"_Professor…?"_

"_I couldn't save her," said Snape, his face still obscured by his hands. "But I promised to protect you. You once asked me why I stopped being a Death Eater." He looked up, his bottomless eyes filled with pain. "That was why."_

"_You hated me," said Harry. "When I first came here you hated me."_

"_Yes," acknowledged Severus. "But not nearly as much as I hated myself."_

_Harry was no longer angry. He looked down at his professor and wished that Professor Trelawney had never told him who had been eavesdropping at the door that day._

"_Why didn't you tell me?" asked Harry finally. "After I found out about the prophesy last year, why didn't you tell me it was you?"_

"_Would you have told, in my place?"_

"_Yes."_

"_Then you are a braver person than I."_

_Harry pulled the second chair over and sat in it. They were silent for several minutes, listening to the clock on the wall tick away the time._

"_I should go," said Harry finally. "Dumbledore wants me in his office."_

_Severus turned to look at Harry. "What for?" he said sharply._

_Harry shrugged. "Dunno. Maybe he's finally found a Horcrux and wants me to help him destroy it."_

_Snape's face tightened. "Do not speak so lightly of such things."_

"_I'm not. At least, I'm not trying to. But that's what it sounded like. And I want to destroy it. I want to destroy all of them. I have to if I'm going to kill Voldemort. And 'neither can live if the other survives' and all that."_

_Severus pinched the bridge of his nose. Suddenly he stood and drew Harry into a swift, tight embrace. _"Be careful."

_Harry swallowed against the sudden lump in his throat and nodded. His professor released him._

"_I am proud of you, Harry. Your mother would have been too."_

_Harry felt tears stinging his eyes and blinked them away. "I—I'll see you when I get back, Professor." He took a step toward the door and then hesitated._

"_Go," said Snape. "Don't keep the headmaster waiting."_

_Harry went._

*****CTU*****

"_I'll see you when I get back, Professor."_

Harry gritted his teeth. He had seen him alright. He had seen him murder that very same headmaster in cold blood and then take off into the night with Draco Malfoy and the rest of the Death Eaters. On a list of his most painful memories, that was a strong contender for the top spot.

If he hadn't gone to Snape first, if he had gone straight to Dumbledore and demanded answers from him… He would have gotten even less. Dumbledore would have told him to talk to Snape. Because Dumbledore trusted him. Trusted him completely. Harry had too. Even knowing he had been a Death Eater. Even knowing he had been the one to reveal the prophesy to Voldemort. He had forgiven him, let the man worm his way back into his heart. He should have cursed him while he had the chance. Then maybe Dumbledore would still be alive and he wouldn't be here now, about to carry out a crazy plan to sneak into the Ministry of Magic and steal the real Horcrux from one of the vilest women Harry had ever had the misfortune to meet.

Giving up on getting any sleep that night, Harry swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, padding softly out into the hall. If he couldn't sleep he might as well make sure everything was ready for the morning.

**AN: Note, reading Chapter 27 of _Dalton_ and watching the _Bones_ episode "A Pain in the Heart" in the same day = emotional overload. It also takes a lot of time.**

**Anyway, as always your reviews are most welcome ;)**

**-SQ**


	9. Chapter 9: Completing the Tournament

**Author's Note: I am so, _SO_ sorry for the amount of time this has taken. My live has been very busy lately, and I just couldn't find the time. I have also been spending more time than I probably should PMing my new partner-in-crime, Arty-the-Puppeteer. We now have a join account under the name of _Crazy-Minds-Think-Alike_ and have stated one story together so far there. Now, here, _finally_, in the ninth chapter of CTU.**

**Disclaimer: I may be of the same house as Jo, but I'm not her.**

**Chapter Nine: Completing the Tournament**

Harry sat in the darkness outside the tent, the heavy metal of the Horcrux icy cold against his bare chest. He wondered if that was what had kept him awake, when he was supposed to be sleeping earlier, causing the sense of foreboding that was threatening to close in around them, or if it was the close call they had had at the Ministry and the thought that even now Death Eaters could be apparating into Grimmauld Place in droves, searching for something that would lead them to Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

Harry closed his eyes, willing the dark thoughts that swirled around his consciousness back into the recesses of his mind, but for every dark, sinister thought he managed to quell, two more rose in its place.

_Neither can live while the other survives._

Those were the words of the prophesy that, because of Severus Snape, had sealed his fate, and perhaps his doom.

He could hear Ron and Hermione speaking in whispers behind him; neither of them were sleeping either. His best friends had been with him every step of the way. So far. But they still had the option to turn around. To go back. Harry did not.

He stared into the inky night around him, his eyes and bones aching with weariness, his mind churning with thoughts that would not let him rest. He knew he had to be imagining it, but it felt as though the Horcrux around his neck were counting down the seconds left to him, leaching his time and strength and life away from him one minute at a time.

_Stop, _he told himself severely. _That's insane. Forget it._

But that was easier said than done, with the heavy locket weighing down every movement of his head as he peered at the surrounding darkness for any sign of discovery.

His scar prickled uncomfortably and he wondered if it was these kinds of thoughts that were causing it. He tried to think of something else, but all trains of thought kept circling back to the same ideas, and the pain in his scar kept building. There was so much they didn't know…so much they had been mistaken about… Harry had trusted Snape, and Snape had betrayed him… He had trusted Dumbledore, but Dumbledore hadn't told him what he needed to know before Snape had killed him…

The forest around him disappeared, replaced by a room where the wandmaker Gregorovitch was being tortured by Voldemort.

The room became a corridor inside Gregorovitch's memories. The wandmaker walked quickly along it and then entered a room that appeared to be a workshop. On the windowsill of this workshop a young man was perched, grinning delightedly, the light of Gregorovitch's lantern shining off his golden hair. Then the grinning boy pointed his want at Gregorovitch, fired a Stunning Spell, and disappeared out of the window.

Harry was in the present time again, where Voldemort was just emerging from Gregorovitch's memory.

"_Who was the theif?"_ he demanded.

"_I do not know," _said Gregorovitch. _"I never knew, a young man—no—please—PLEASE!"_

There was a scream and a flash of brilliant green light—

"_Harry!"_

Harry opened his eyes to find himself once more on the ground outside the tent. Hermione was standing over him, looking down at him in obvious concern.

"Dream," he grunted, righting himself and forcing himself to meet his friend's eyes.

Of course, that went over just about as well as he had thought it would. Hermione just didn't understand. He didn't _want_ to have these visions. He couldn't control what he saw in his _dreams_! He cut off her rant and told her and Ron what he had seen. When Hermione wouldn't listen, he just told Ron.

When he went into the tent and lay down his mind was still churning with images of Voldemort, Gregorovitch, and the mysterious blonde thief. Long after Ron's snores filled the tent, he lay awake pondering what he had seen. And when he did finally fall asleep, his dreams, perhaps influenced by the forest in which they were currently residing, were full of memories of his own.

*****CTU*****

_Harry squinted down at the Marauders Map by the dim light of his wand. There, moving around in Snape's office of all places, was a dot that was definitely not supposed to be there._

_What in the world was Barty Crouch doing at Hogwarrts when he was supposed to be too ill to come to work? And what was he doing in Snape's office at one o'clock in the morning? Harry felt a prickle of indignation. What right did Barty Crouch have to be lurking in Snape's office in the middle of the night? Snape was very particular about who he let into his office, and no one was allowed in there when he wasn't present._

_Harry watched the dot for another minute and was rankled to see that it was moving around the room as though searching for something, stopping every once in a while at different points in the space._

_Harry hesitated. He knew exactly what Snape would have told him about his 'dangerous curiosity', but he couldn't just go off to bed knowing that Crouch was invading the Potions Master's closely guarded privacy. Making a decision, he turned around and headed back the way he had come, determined to see exactly what Mr. Crouch was up to._

_Harry crept down the staircase on tiptoe, trying to make as little noise as possible. Making sure he remained completely covered by the Invisibility Cloak, just in case, he continued through a secret passageway and down another, narrower staircase, wondering all the time what could have possibly brought Crouch to the castle in the middle of the night._

_So engrossed was he in these musing sand the conflict between the image he had of Crouch and what the man was doing now that he completely forgot about the trick step. One second he was walking down the staircase, his nose pressed close to the surface of the Marauders Map, and the next he was stuck fast, one leg sunk knee deep in a step that was not there. Thrown of balance, he wobbled, grappling desperately for purchase, and the heavy, water-slicked golden egg slipped from his grip and went bouncing loudly down the staircase, each bang reverberating more loudly than the one before it in the deserted corridor. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Invisibility Cloak slipped, and in his efforts to keep it from falling off completely, the Marauder's Map, still proudly displaying the image of Hogwarts and all its inhabitants, fluttered out of Harry's hand and landed several steps below, firmly out of his reach._

_And then the egg reached the bottom of the staircase, sprang open, and filled the corridor with ear-splitting wail._

_He was so dead._

_Sure enough, mere seconds after the egg started screaming, there was another shout, somehow loud enough to be heard even over the egg's ongoing din._

"_PEEVES!"_

_It was unmistakably the voice of Flich, the Hogwarts caretaker. He came pounding and wheezing down the corridor, crowing about Peeves, the resident Poltergeist. Both his footsteps and his monologue halted abruptly as he reached the foot of the staircase and the wailing golden egg. Harry heard, from beyond the tapestry concealing his staircase, Filch pick up the egg and snap it shut. The wailing ceased, leaving a ringing silence in its place. Harry held his breath, waiting for the inevitable, praying for a miracle that would keep him from being caught._

_Sure enough, Filch threw aside the tapestry and, when he failed to find Peeves behind it as he had obviously expected, began to laboriously climb the steps, muttering to himself and his grey, skeletal cat, Mrs. Norris._

_A shiver went through Harry. Mrs. Norris's eyes were fixed directly upon him and he wondered, not for the first time, whether cats were immune to the effects of Invisibility Cloaks._

_Harry attempted to wrench his leg from the step, but it wouldn't budge. Filch came closer and closer, he was almost upon him, when—_

"_Filch? What's going on?"_

_Filch stopped and turned. Harry looked too, though he already knew who the voice belonged to. Professor Snape himself. Harry didn't know whether this was a good or a bad development for his situation._

"_It's Peeves, Professor," said Filch in a hissing whisper. "He threw this egg down the stairs."_

_Snape joined Filch on the stairs, narrowing his eyes. "Peeves?" He stared hard at the egg in Filch's hand. "Peeves couldn't get into my office…"_

"_This egg was in your office, Professor?"_

"_Of course not," said Snape irritably. "I heard banging and wailing—"_

"_Yes, Professor, it was the egg—"_

_Snape stared hard at the egg. His eyes narrowed further. Then he lifted his head and peered up the shadowy staircase. "Give me that egg, Filch."_

"_But—"_

"_It belongs to a student and ought to be returned."_

"_The thing is, Professor," said Filch plaintively, "the headmaster will have to listen to me this time. Peeves has been stealing from a student, it might be my chance to get him thrown out of the castle for once and for all—"_

"_Filch," snapped Snape, "I don't give a damn about that wretched poltergeist; the egg—"_

Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.

_Snape cut his sentence short, turning to look back down the staircase. Below them all, the figure of Mad-Eye Moody appeared._

"_Pajama party, is it?" he growled at the two men, who were both in their nightshirts._

"_Professor Snape and I heard noises, Professor," started Filch eagerly. "Peeves the Poltergeist, throwing things around as usual."_

_Moody looked from Filch to Snape to Harry. Harry internally swore. Moody's eye could see through Invisibility Cloaks! He stood there, stuck knee-deep in the stair, watching Moody watch him and praying that his professor wouldn't say anything to reveal his presence._

_Finally, Moody looked back at Snape. "And you, Snape, what are you doing out of bed at this hour?"_

"_I heard noises, I came to investigate."_

"_Something about his office—"_

"_Shut up!" Snape hissed at Filch._

"_Your office?" said Moody with interest. "What about your office?"_

"_Someone appears to have broken into it," said Snape shortly. "It is unimportant."_

"_On the contrary," said Moody in his usual growl, "it is very important. Who'd want to break into your office?"_

"_A student, I daresay," said Snape._

_But Harry knew this wasn't true. First of all, he had clearly seen Crouch's name in Snape's office on the map, second of all, most students wouldn't be able to break the spell Snape used to seal his office from intruders._

_"Reckon they were after potion ingredients, eh?" said Moody. "Not hiding anything else in your office, are you?"_

_Harry tuned back into the conversation and felt a small stab of guilt. It had been he himself and his friends who had stolen the ingredients from Snape's private stores in their second year, in order to brew a Polyjuice Potion to Interrogate Draco Malfoy about the Heir of Slytherin._

"_You know I'm hiding nothing, Moody," said Snape coldly. A vein pulsed in his temple, a sure sign that the man would have a wicked headache later on. "As you've searched my office pretty thoroughly yourself."_

_Moody's gash of a mouth lifted into a twisted smile. "Auror's privilege, Snape. Dumbedore told me to keep an eye—"_

"_Dumbledore happens to trust me," said Snape, and Harry could hear the strain in his voice. It was a sentiment Harry and Dumbledore shared; Snape might not be the nicest person on the planet (a vast understatement) but he was definitely trustworthy and reliable._

"'_Course Dumbledore trusts you," said Moody. "He's a trusting man, isn't he? Believes in second chances. But me—I say there are spots that don't come off, Snape. Spots that never come off, d'you know what I mean?"_

_Harry certainly didn't know what Moody meant. Nor did he know why Snape suddenly grabbed his left forearm as though it burned._

_Moody laughed, and there was something vaguely taunting about it. "Get back to bed, Snape."_

_Snape did not take kindly to this either, not that Harry had thought he would. The man hated being ordered around worse than he did. It was obvious that Snape and Moody did not like each other. It looked like they were both at least civilized enough to finally leave and allow Harry to attempt to free himself when Moody did something which made Harry bite back a groan. He saw the Marauder's Map._

"_You've dropped something, by the way…"_

_Snape bent down and picked up the parchment on the step. His eyebrows rose. "Thank you. Filch," he said, turning to the caretaker, "I'll take that egg."_

"_No!" said Filch, clutching the egg as though it were his first-born son. "Professor Snape, this is evidence of Peeves' treachery!"_

"_I need to return it to its owner," said Snape, his eyes once again scanning the steps where Harry stood. He took the egg from a very reluctant Filch. "You may leave now, Filch. You too, Moody."_

"_No," said Moody," I rather think I'll stay."_

"_And I rather think you won't," snapped Snape. "I have business of a private nature to take care of."_

"_With that egg and that parchment?" asked Moody lightly._

_Snape just glared at him._

_Harry made a motion indicating for Moody to go. Snape knew he was there and he was going to have to face the man at some point; the sooner he got it over with the better._

"_Very well," said Moody finally. "But I'd step carefully if I were you. Dumbledore is very interested in finding out who's got it in for Harry Potter. And so am I, Snape…very interested…" With that he limped away, the clunking of his wooden leg fading until it was no longer audible._

_Snape looked toward the top of the staircase. "You have three seconds to remove that cloak, Potter. One…two…"_

"_I'm doing it, I'm doing it," said Harry, hastily tugging the cloak off of himself. "I'm here."_

_Snape glared at him. "So I see. The question is, _why_ are you here?"_

_Harry knew from experience that lying to Snape nearly always let to grief._

"_Cedric gave me a tip on how to figure out the egg's clue, it was something I couldn't do during the day when everyone else was around."_

_Snape pinched the bridge of his nose. "Of course it was… Do you _enjoy_ breaking the rules, Harry?"_

_Snape was calling him by his first name, that was a reassuring sign._

"_No," said Harry. "It just…seems to happen."_

"_That it does," said Snape, who still looked none too happy with Harry._

"_Er…" said Harry. "Do you think you could help me, Professor? I'm kind of stuck, and it's not very comfortable." In fact it hurt rather a lot._

_Snape, who had been gazing at the Map again, went over to Harry and yanked him roughly from the trick step. Harry stood on the step above it, rubbing his leg and waiting for Snape to speak again._

"_So this is what this parchment really is," he said finally, eyeing the teenager over the top of the Map._

"_Er…yeah," said Harry. "My…my dad and Sirius and Lupin and Wormtail made it when they were in school together."_

_Severus snorted. "Figures."_

"_Can I please have it back?" Harry ventured. "It's not breaking any rules and it _was_ my dad's…" He bit his lip. Perhaps mentioning his dad again to Snape wasn't the best idea._

"_It depends," said Snape. He stared hard at Harry. "Someone was looking through my office tonight. Was it you?"_

"_What?" said Harry. "No! I wouldn't go into your office without your permission; do you think I have a death wish? Besides," he added. "I wouldn't know how."_

_Severus had to concede both of these points. "Very well. If it was not you, did you happen so see who it was on this map?"_

"_Yeah, actually," said Harry, suddenly remembering how he had gotten into this predicament in the first place. "It was Mr. Crouch."_

_Snape seemed slightly taken about. "Mr. Crouch? Are you sure?"_

_Harry nodded._

"_That doesn't make any sense…" muttered Snape. _

_Harry couldn't help but add. "Moody shouldn't have suggested that you would try and hurt me. It's ridiculous."_

"_Yes, well, obviously not from where he's standing," said Snape darkly. He shook his head irritably. "Take your map and your egg and get back to your dormitory before you get into any more trouble. And I'm going to have to take five points from Gryffindor for being out of bed after hours."_

"_Professor—!"_

"_Go now or I'll make it ten."_

_Harry signed. "Okay, okay, I'm going. Goodnight, Professor."_

"_Goodnight, Harry."_

*****CTU*****

No, Snape hadn't been the person trying to hurt him that time. "Moody", who was really Barty Crouch Jr. using the Polyjuice Potion, had, but that was only because Voldemort hadn't come back yet at that point, plus doing anything to harm Harry would have blown his cover. No, instead he got close to Harry, pretended to be protecting him. Barty Crouch Jr. had thought he was Voldemort's most devoted and devious follower, but that award definitely went to Severus Snape.

*****CTU*****

"_The third and final task will take place at dusk on the twenty-fourth of June. The champions will be notified of what is coming precisely one month beforehand. Thank you all for your support of the champions."_

_Harry turned away from the lake with Madam Pomfrey and the rest of the champions, feeling wet, cold, and dazed, and nearly walked right into his Potions professor._

"_Harry."_

"_Professor," said Harry hoarsely, blinking up at him. "I did it…it's over…"_

"_That you did," said Severus, the suggestion of a smile playing about his lips. "Though you still have one more task to complete. Poppy," he said, addressing Madam Pomfrey, "with your permission, I will take Potter back to my office and get him dried off there."_

_Madam Pomfrey pursed her lips. "He is uninjured, so I suppose it will be alright. He is under strict orders to take it easy though. And a bit of chocolate wouldn't hurt either."_

"_Duly noted," replied Snape. "Come along, Potter. Let's get you into some dry clothes before you catch a chill. That is an experience I am sure neither of us wants to repeat, as…illuminating as it was."_

_Harry smiled slightly and shook his head fervently, following his professor back up to the school ahead of Madam Pomfrey and the other champions._

_When they reached Snape's office, the Potions master immediately pulled a spare set of teenager-sized robes, a t-shirt, and some jeans out of a storage closet and tossed them to Harry. "Put these on."_

"_Where did you get these, sir?" asked Harry as he shed his sopping clothing and donned the clean, dry garments._

"_You left them here on one of your many untimely visits. I took the liberty of laundering them for you, but had not yet gotten the chance to return them."_

"_Oh," said Harry. "Well, thank you. Sir."_

"_Also," Severus held out a small hunk of chocolate to Harry. "I would rather not have Poppy breathing down my neck any more than I already have to."_

_Harry smiled, well acquainted with the nurse's exacting ways. "Thanks."_

"_You are welcome. Now go find your housemates and _try_ not to let your head get too inflated."_

_Harry rolled his eyes. "I'll do my best, sir."_

"_Do not roll your eyes at me, young man, I am your teacher."_

"_Yes sir."_

*****CTU*****

Now Harry wished he _hadn't_ done his best, just to spite the man, though of course getting an inflated head wasn't exactly a part of his nature to begin with. Much more his father's arena. Because he needed more painful thoughts tonight.

Of course, now he knew why Snape had clutched at his left arm. That was where his Dark Mark, the tattoo which identified him as a Death Eater, was branded onto his skin. Of course, Harry hadn't found out that Snape had been a Death Eater until later that year. Karkaroff had been one too. Harry remembered when Karkaroff had tried to speak to Snape about the Marks after one Potions class. Harry, curious, had stayed behind and listened, but he had learned nothing and Snape had staunchly refused to tell him anything about it.

Harry hadn't had much contact with Karkaroff, but from what little he did have he knew that he did not like the man. He had been convinced that everything Harry or Dumbledore did was some sort of plot to give Hogwarts an edge in the Tournament. Then, when Voldemort had returned, he had fled, leaving his students behind. Even when Victor Krum had been attacked he had cared more about Krum as a champion than as a student. He had been attacked, of course, by the same Barty Crouch Jr., disguised as Mad-Eye Moody. Who had known to be there because Harry had lent him the Marauder's Map…

*****CTU*****

_The day after Harry's encounter with Filch, Snape, and Moody on the staircase, Moody stopped him in the hall on his way to dinner. _

"_Potter, do you happen to have that interesting piece of parchment that you had the other night on you?"_

_Harry hesitated, but, as it was obvious from the way he said it that Moody had already seen the map, he pulled it out, tapped it and said "I solemnly swear I am up to no good," and handed it to his professor._

_Moody considered it with both of his eyes. "This…this is some map, Potter!"_

"_Yeah, it's…quite useful," said Harry, wondering where Moody was going with this._

_Mood was silent for a minute, examining the map, running his fingers over the lines. "Tell me," he said finally, "last night, did you see anything unusual on this map? Perhaps the reason you were roaming the halls at such an hour?"_

_Harry colored slightly. "Er…yeah, actually. I saw Mr. Crouch._

"_Crouch?" said Moody, his normal eye widening. He looked down at the map again. "Very…interesting…"_

"_Yeah, he was inside Snape's office. Where he had no right to be," added Harry with a touch of indignation._

_Moody looked at the map and then at Harry. "Potter, they say old Mad-Eye's obsessed with catching Dark wizards…but I'm nothing—_nothing_—compared to Barty Crouch."_

"_But Snape's not a Dark wizard!" Harry protested._

"_No?" said Moody. "Well…perhaps not, but people like Crouch can never be too careful…" He gazed at the wall and added, almost to himself, "If there's one thing I hate, it's a Death Eater who walked free…"_

_Before Harry could question what Moody meant by this he said briskly, "Potter, would you mind if I borrowed this?"_

_Harry blinked at him. On the one hand, he really didn't fancy lending anyone his map; on the other, there were a lot worse things Moody could have asked than this. "Er…sure, okay."_

"_Good boy," growled Moody. "I can make good use of this…this might be _exactly_ what I've been looking for… Now you'd better hurry along, Potter, before you miss dinner. Oh, one last thing," he added, as Harry tuned to continue down to the Great Hall._

"_Yes?"_

"_Ever thought of a career as an Auror, Potter?"_

_Harry was a bit taken aback. "No," he said truthfully._

"_You want to consider it," said Moody, nodding thoughtfully. "Yes, indeed…and incidentally…I'm guessing you weren't just taking that egg for a walk last night?"_

"_Er—no," said Harry, grinning sheepishly. "I was working on the clue."_

_Moody grinned and winked. "Nothing like a nighttime stroll to give you ideas, Potter. See you later…"_

*****CTU*****

If he thought about it, Harry really had rotten luck when it came to choosing people to put his trust in. Two Death Eaters who were planning on getting him killed was not a very good track record.

*****CTU*****

_Krum had pulled Harry aside to talk about Hermione. Harry had just managed to convince him that Hermione was in no way, shape, or form his girlfriend and never had been when Mr. Crouch had emerged from the trees on the edge of Forbidden Forest. He was dirty and ragged and acting quite mad, in turn talking to Ron's older brother Percy, who wasn't there, and gasping about something he had done wrong and needing to talk to Dumbledore. Harry and Krum stared at him in shock._

"_You stay here with him!" Harry shouted to Krum once he had finally gotten over his shock and succeeded in getting Crouch to let go of his robes. "I'll get Dumbledore, I'll be quicker, I know where his office is—"_

"_He is mad," said Krum apprehensively, as Crouch continued to speak to the tree in front of him as though it were Percy Weasley._

"_Just stay with him," said Harry. He started to leave, but Crouch's attention shifted once more and he latched onto Harry again, begging him not to leave, to tell Dumbldore that something was his fault…something about Voldemort…_

"_I'll get Dumbledore if you let me go, Mr. Crouch!" said Harry, feeling increasingly panicky and desperate. With Krum's help he managed to free himself from Crouch's grasp for a second time._

_He raced back through the deserted grounds toward the castle as quickly as he could. When he got to the stone gargoyle guarding the entrance to the headmaster's office, however, he found that the password had been changed._

_He was just starting toward the staffroom, wondering in Dumbledore could be found there, when a voice saying his name made him start._

"_Harry! What are you doing?"_

_Harry jumped and looked around, coming face to face with Professor Snape, who had just stepped out from behind the gargoyle._

"_Professor!" he said, feeling relieved. "I need to see Professor Dumbledore! It's Mr. Crouch…he's just turned up…he's in the forest…he's asking—"_

"_Slow down, Harry," Severus demanded. "Start from the beginning."_

_Harry took a deep breath and recounted quickly to Snape what had transpired on the grounds. When he was done, Snape immediately turned around and marched back up the spiral staircase, Harry trotting along behind him. Ten minutes later Harry, Snape, and Professor Dumbledore were hurrying across the grounds toward the place where Harry had left Crouch and Krum._

_When they arrived, they found that Krum had been stunned and Crouch had disappeared._

_Moody arrived and went in search of Crouch, Hagrid was sent to get Karkaroff and brought him back, and Krum was awakened. Harry stayed close to the reassuring figure of Snape as Karkaroff ranted to a calm and composed Dumbledore and a not so composed Hagrid._

"_Please take Harry back to school, Severus," said Dumbledore finally._

_Snape did not need to be asked twice; he put a hand on Harry's back and steered him toward the castle. "You will go right up to Gryffindor Tower and you will stay there," he said in a tone that brooked no argument. "Anything you might want to do—any _owls_ you might want to send—can wait until morning, do I make myself clear?"_

_Harry nodded, wondering how Snape had known that he wanted to write to Sirius._

_The two of them reached Gryffindor Tower._

"_Go inside and go to bed," said Snape, as though he had authority over Harry's sleeping schedule. "I will see you tomorrow."_

_Harry nodded. "Goodnight, Professor. Thank you."_

"_You can thank me by staying alive and whole," said Severus gruffly._

*****CTU****

Yes, staying alive and whole so that Voldemort himself could kill him once he came back.

Harry put his pillow over his head. Bloody World Cup woods. Blood fourth year. Bloody Triwizard Tournament.

*****CTU*****

_Harry was both shocked and thrilled to find that the Weasleys had come to wish him luck for the third task. Surrounded by laughing and reminiscing Weasleys, he could almost forget the maze that was looming so near in his future. All too soon, however, Dumbledore stood up at the staff table and announced that it was time for the champions to go down to the Quidditch field for the third task._

"_Good luck!" chorused the Weasleys and Hermione as he rose from his seat and made his way across the Great Hall to join the other champions and Ludo Bagman. As he passed the dais upon which the staff table was located, he felt a hand on his shoulder._

_Harry looked up into the hooked-nosed face of Professor Snape. "Oh," said Harry. "Was there something you wanted, Professor?"_

"_Only to wish you luck, Harry."_

"_Oh. Thanks."_

"_Take care of yourself out there. Don't do anything stupid."_

_Harry smiled. "I'll try not to."_

_Harry walked with Bagman and the rest of the champions down to the Quidditch pitch, where the rules of the task were explained. Then, before he knew it, Bagman had blown his whistle and Harry and Cedric had taken off running into the maze._

*****CTU*****

_Harry slammed face first into the grass, rolled over onto his back and stayed there, too dazed and exhausted to think, let alone move. He could feel his fingers wrapped around the handle of the Triwizard Cup, his other arm clutching Cedric's body to him. Blackness threatened to engulf him and he tightened his grip on both of them, as if they were anchoring him to consciousness. It was eerily quiet, as if everyone were holding their breath—or maybe Harry had just gone deaf. He waited, not exactly sure for what, his scar throbbing in time to his disordered thoughts._

_Suddenly a wave of sound broke over him, washing him in confusion and panic both his own and from outside himself. Voices and screams reverberated above him while footsteps vibrated the ground beneath his aching head. He screwed up his face as though he could make all of it go away—the noise, the tournament, Wormtail, Voldemort, the circle of Death Eaters, Cedric's lifeless body…_

"_Harry! _Harry!_"_

_A pair of hands grabbed him roughly by the shoulders and tuned him over. Harry opened his eyes. His view of the star-strewn heavens was immediately obscured by the form of Severus Snape, eyes wide with unveiled concern the likes of which he had only seen once before, at the end of last summer when he had returned from the Quidditch World Cup._

_Harry blinked and attempted to lift his head, but it was spinning so much he could barely tell which way was up. He realized that he was back at the entrance to the maze. His vision swam and he felt more than saw the form of Albus Dumbledore crouch down beside Snape. Hands touched his face, but he was unsure whether they belonged to Snape or Dumbledore. He released the Triwizard Cup, but held onto Cedric as though his life depended on it._

"_He's back," Harry whispered, trying to bring Snape's face into focus. "He's back. Voldemort."_

_Cornelius Fudge came running over and there was more shouting and pounding of feet. It made Harry's head hurt. A cool, dry hand came to rest on his forehead._

"_Let go of him," said Snape's voice, and Harry realized that Fudge had been trying to pry Cedric's body away from him. "Harry, let go. You can't help him. It's over."_

"_He wanted me to bring him back," said Harry, his words slurring. "He wanted me to bring him back to his parents…"_

"_I know Harry," said Snape. "And you did. You can let him go now."_

_Reluctantly, Harry slackened his grip on Cedric. Snape bend and lifted Harry off the ground, setting him on his feet. Harry swayed on his injured leg, his head reeling, and Snape put a hand on his back to support him. Harry leaned into the comforting touch. There were people all around him, still running and shouting. Arguing about what was to be done, who was to take Cedric's body, who was to take Harry…_

_Snape's hand disappeared from his back and another arm came around his shoulders._

"_It's alright, son, I've got you…come on…hospital wing…"_

"_Snape…" said Harry, his tongue not seeming able to form full sentences._

"_You need to lie down… Come on now…"_

_Someone both larger and stronger, and also more coherent than Harry steered him through the tumult toward the castle. They left the crowd and the chaos behind, passing the lake and then entering the deserted corridors of the school._

"_What happened, Harry?" asked the man, lifting Harry up the stair case. _Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. _Mad-Eye Moody._

_Harry, prompted by questions from Moody, explained the events since he and Cedric had touched the Triwizard Cup to the best of his abilities as they continued up the stairs to Moody's office. Away from the noise and confusion of the Quidditch pitch his head was beginning to become marginally clearer; he could see now, though his visions was still blurry and his scar still burned. Moody pressed a cup into his hands._

"_Drink it…you'll feel better…come on, now, Harry, I need to know exactly what happened…"_

_The beverage burned his throat but cleared his head. He was able to look around the room without squinting. Moody was standing in front of him, gazing at him intently._

"_Voldemort's back, Harry?" he asked, continuing his firing of questions. "You're sure he's back? How did he do it?"_

_Harry continued to answer the questions Moody shot at him, trying to remember what it was that was nagging at the edge of his mind. Suddenly he realized—he should have told Dumbledore and Snape first thing, but his brain had been so muddled…_

"_There's a Death Eater at Howarts!" he blurted quickly. "There's a Death Eater here—they put my name in the Goblet of Fire, they made sue I got through to the end—"_

"_I know who the Death Eater is," said Moody quietly. And that is when things went horribly wrong._

_Moody, a Death Eater. No, no, it couldn't be, it _couldn't_ be! Moody was an Auror, he _caught_ Dark wizards for a living, he couldn't _be_ one! He kept going on and on about how he was Voldemort's loyal follower, how he had guided Harry through the tournament, making sure that he won so that he would be transported to the graveyard and Voldemort…_

_Harry stared in horror at Moody as he talked. The shapes in the Foe-Glass behind him were sharpening. Three figures had coalesced from the vague forms, coming closer and closer. Moody kept talking._

"_You're mad," croaked Harry, though he knew that Snape would have something to say about talking back to someone who was planning to kill you. "You're mad!"_

"_Mad, am I?" said Moody, and he certainly sounded mad. "We'll see! We'll see who's mad, now that the Dark Lord has returned, with me at his side! He is back, Harry Potter, you did not conquer him—and now—I conquer you!"_

_Moody raised his wand; Harry scrambled for his own, knowing that he couldn't possibly be fast enough—_

"Stupefy!"

_A streak of red light burst into the room, tearing apart Moody's office door and striking Moody himself in the back. The man went flying. When the dust settled, Harry found himself facing Professors Snape, Dumbledore, and McGongall, all with their wands drawn._

_Harry had maybe two seconds to appreciate his sudden understanding of why Dumbledore was the only wizard Voldemort had ever feared, and then he was enveloped on a pair of black-cloaked arms which crushed him briefly against a chest and then began to check him over for injury._

"_I'm okay," he managed to say. "He didn't get a chance to hurt me, I'm okay."_

_Snape pulled back, still gripping Harry's shoulders, and looked at him._

"_What in all _hells_ possessed you to go with him! ? You were supposed to stay where you were!"_

"_I—I know, I'm sorry, he took me…"_

"_Severus," said McGongall from somewhere behind Snape. "He needs the hospital wing."_

"_No," said Dumbledore sharply._

"_Albus, look at him," said Severus._

"_He will stay, Severus, Minerva, because he needs to understand. Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery. He needs to know who has put him through the ordeal he has suffered to night, and why."_

_And so Harry stayed, with Snape hovering protectively at his side, and learned about Barty Crouch Jr. and everything he had done since the trial Harry had seen in the pensieve. He watched with numb shock as Moody's trunk was opened to reveal the real Mad-Eye Moody, emaciated but alive, and listened dumbly as Dumbledore gave instructions to Professors McGongall and Snape._

_Then Dumbledore took Harry up to his office McGongall and a very reluctant Snape departed to carry out what had been asked of them._

_After meeting with Sirius, after narrating the events that had taken place in the graveyard to him and Dumbledore, after a tearful reunion with the Weasleys (at least on Mrs. Weasley's part), after a sequence of events that Harry was beginning to think would never end, Harry was finally allowed to sleep._

*****CTU*****

And in the present time, Harry also finally slipped back into slumber, though it was no more restful than his waking thoughts and memory dreams had been.

**AN: I know there was a lot of summary stuff here, but there was also stuff that needed to be addressed. Thanks for reading! Hope you'll review! & check out _Crazy-Minds-Think-Alike_.**


	10. Chapter 10: Too Young

**Author's Note: Oh dear…the time between updates just keeps getting worse and worse, doesn't it? I really do try. I just…have tended to fail recently. Too much going on. I promise you nothing except the fact that I _am_ still working on all my fanfics, and they _will_ be updated, as soon as I can get them.**

**-SQ  
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**Disclaimer: Are you kidding? I don't even own a Pottermore account, or at least a functional one. The stupid validation email didn't come. Yes, I've send in a complaint.**

**Chapter Ten: Too Young**

"Ginny—" said Harry, "the sword—"

"I know!" said Hermione.

She grabbed her enchanted beaded bag and dug around inside it while Harry and Ron stared at each other, still reeling from the conversation they had just overheard on between Ted Tonks and Dirk Cresswell.

"Here…we…are," panted Hermione, yanking her arm out of the bag. Along with it came a large, ornate picture frame, which Harry hurried to help her with.

"If somebody swapped the real sword for the fake while it was in Dumbledore's office," said Hermione breathlessly, her wand pointing at the portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black she and Harry were lifting out of her bag, "Phineas Nigellus would have seen it happen, he hangs right beside the case!"

Harry helped Hermione prop the painting against the side of the tent and then sat back on his heels as Hermione called the name of the portrait's occupant.

At first she got no response, but after several persistent attempts and a 'please', the former headmaster of Hogwarts slid into view.

"_Obsucro!" _said Hermione hurriedly, and a blindfold appeared over Phineas Nigellus's eyes.

The man sputtered in protest, demanding that they remove the blindfold and tell him where he was and what was going on. He only stopped when he heard Harry's voice.

It wasn't a particularly pleasant conversation, as Phineas Nigellus kept insulting them and their friends and demanding respect for himself and Snape, but they did learn one valuable thing—the sword of Godric Gryffindor, which Dumbledore had left Harry, had the ability to destroy Horcruxes. The only problem was that they didn't have the faintest idea where the real sword was.

Well, that and the fact that Ron had finally decided he had had enough of Harry and Dumbledore and Horcruxes and the whole mess and had up and left them.

Now Harry lay on his back on his bunk, staring up at the tent roof above his head and listening to the downpour around them. He couldn't ever remember feeling this miserable in his entire life. It seemed as though everything was piling up to make his life more unbearable by the day. He had lost Sirius, Dumbledore, Snape, Hogwarts, and now even Ron, the friend he had thought would stand by him through anything, had left him. And he _still_ had to find the bloody Horcruxes and kill Voldemort, or else allow Voldemort to kill him. He had to admit that occasionally it seemed an inviting prospect.

Harry was only seventeen; he was too young for this kind of responsibility, to face these kinds of horrors. He had spent so much of his life insisting he was old enough for whatever people had to throw at him and having those people tell him that he wasn't. He was starting to believe that they had been right.

*****CTU*****

_When Harry and Ron arrived for their first NEWT level Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson, Hermione was already there, waiting outside the closed door with her arms full of books. Harry hadn't spoken to Snape since before the welcome feast. He had been in such a bad mood then about being caught and incapacitated by Malfoy that he hadn't been thinking about what he had heard Malfoy say. Now, however, he was thinking about it, and what Malfoy had been doing in Knockturn Alley. Ron and Hermione remained unconvinced that Malfoy was anything other than boastful and annoying, but Harry knew, he _knew_ that something more was going on with the Slytherin. Malfoy was a Death Eater, that's all there was to it, and if Ron and Hermione didn't believe him, then maybe Snape would._

_As if summoned by Harry's thoughts, Snape himself stepped into the corridor. Immediately the group of waiting students fell silent._

"_Inside," said Snape._

_Harry looked around the room as he and the rest of class followed Snape inside. Typical Snape; the curtains were drawn and candles placed at various intervals around the room cast the space in equal patches of flickering light and shadow. There were also several rather gruesome paintings on the walls that didn't bear closer examination._

"_I have not asked you to take out your books," said Snape in that soft voice that somehow captured his students' attention more effectively than any shout. "I wish to speak to you, and I want your fullest attention."_

_Harry watched as Snape cast his gaze appraisingly over the group of sixth-years. When his dark eyes met Harry's green ones they lingered for just a fraction of a second; a barely noticeable acknowledgement, but a meaningful one._

_Snape continued his introduction, expounding upon the importance and intricacies of the Dark Arts. Harry hung onto his every word. Snape _did_ know the Dark Arts. Well, of course he did, he had been a Death Eater. But it was obvious that he was a passionate about defending against them as his former compatriots were about using them. Defense had always been Harry's favorite subject, but now Harry was even more excited for it than before._

_Ron, next to him, didn't look nearly as thrilled about Snape teaching the class, but Harry had given up on making his best friend see the Potions Master—now Defense Against the Dark Arts professor—in a better light. Snape was a hard man to like. And an even harder one to get along with._

_After Snape had finished speaking, they paired up to practice non-verbal jinxes. Harry was partnered with Ron, whose lips were presses tightly together as he fought the urge to utter the spell aloud. So far he had had no luck in jinxing Harry, who was growing a bit tired of waiting on edge for nothing._

_Suddenly Snape was beside them._

"_Pathetic, Weasley," he said with his usual lack of consideration toward anyone who was not a Slytherin and not Harry. "Here—let me show you—"_

_He turned at lightning speed, drawing his wand as he went. Harry reacted out of instinct, his body taking him back to the hours he had spent practicing Occlumency with Snape the previous year._

"Protego!"

_The Shield Charm erupted from his wand with enough force to knock Snape off-balance into a desk. The entire class stopped what they were doing and stared at the two of them._

_Snape straightened his robes, scowling at Harry._

"_Do you remember me telling you we are practicing _nonverbal_ spells, Potter?"_

"_Yes," said Harry, a touch sheepishly. "Only you took me by surprise and—"_

"_Quiet, Potter. A simple 'yes' would have been sufficient. If you remember me _telling_ you to use nonverbal spells, why did you not do so?"_

"_I told you, you took me by surprise—" started Harry again._

"_That often happens when someone is jinxing you," said Snape archly._

_A few of the Slytherins tittered._

_Harry scowled. "I'll do it next time," he said._

"_I daresay you will, Potter," said Snape. "I will see you Saturday night in my office."_

_Harry gaped at him. Was Snape giving him a _detention_? For saying a spell out loud? Snape hadn't given him a detention since—since—since his third year when he had gone to his detention ill and collapsed and everything between them had started to change._

"_Close your mouth, Potter," said Snape brusquely. "You look like a fish."_

_Harry snapped his mouth shut, his brain still reeling._

_*****CTU*****_

"_That git!" said Ron after class. "What's he playing at, giving you a detention? You didn't even do anything!"_

"_Technically he didn't _say_ it was a detention," said Hermione. "He just said for Harry to meet him in his office on Saturday night."_

"_Please, Hermione," said Ron, "what else could it be? A tea party?"_

_Harry was inclined to agree with him, though now that he thought about it, Hermione was right, Snape hadn't explicitly _stated _that he was giving Harry a detention. And Harry had wanted to talk to the man, though preferably starting off on a better foot than this seemed to be._

_Harry had to wait longer than until Saturday to find out what it was really about, however. Not five minutes later, Jack Sloper ran up to him and handed him a roll of parchment._

Dear Harry,

I would like to start our private lessons this Saturday. Kindly come along to my office at 8 p.m. I hope you are enjoying your first day back at school.

Yours sincerely,

Albus Dumbledore

P.S. I enjoy Acid Pops

_*****CTU*****_

_Harry had not enjoyed Professor Slughorn's first 'Slug Club' party one bit, and so he was actually glad to receive a message from Professor Snape that he was, in no uncertain terms, expected in the man's office that night, regardless of any parties he might have been invited to. It was almost as if Snape was intentionally saving him from having to attend another one of Slughorn's little soirées. Except, of course, that Harry still didn't know _why_ Snape wanted to see him. Or how mad he'd be that he'd had to decline the first summons._

_Harry walked down the familiar chilly corridor to Snape's office and knocked on the door, waiting for the silky voice to bid him entry. When it did he turned the doorknob hesitantly and entered the room._

"_Er, hello, Professor. You wanted to see me."_

"_Yes," said Snape. "A pity you had to miss your little party," he added, his lip curling slightly._

"_No," said Harry, "it's really not. Detention with you might actually be better than another party with Slughorn."_

_Snape made a sound that might have been a chuckle. "How flattering. However, this is not a detention."_

"_It's not?" said Harry, feeling both relieved and confused. "What is it, then?"_

"_I think it is about time you and I picked back up where we left off with Occlumency."_

_Harry blinked. His last Occlumency lesson with Snape had gone rather poorly, considering he had ended up seeing one of Snape's worst memories that he had been specifically keeping from him. The two of them had eventually made up, but no mention had been made of continuing the Occlumency lessons._

"_You are resembling a fish again, Harry," said Severus._

"_Oh," said Harry. "Er, sorry. I was just surprised. You want to continue giving me Occlumency lessons?"_

"_I believe that is what I just said," said Severus. "You do, I take it, still need them?" He raised an eyebrow knowingly._

"_Er…" said Harry shuffling his feet. "They might help, yeah…"_

"_Very well then," said Snape. "Then let's get started, shall we."_

_*****CTU*****_

_Harry realized quickly that he was quite out of practice where Occlumency was concerned. Snape drove into his mind without (or at least with minimal) mercy, leaving him breathless and gasping following each onslaught. After three quarters of an hour, Snape finally lowered his wand._

"_You have been slacking," he observed._

_Harry said nothing._

"_I expect you to clear your mind every night before you go to sleep."_

"_Yes sir," said Harry._

"_Good boy."_

_Harry looked up at him, risking a small smile._

_Severus's expression softened slightly in return. "You may leave, now."_

"_Actually, Professor…there was something I wanted to talk to you about."_

"_Yes?"_

_Harry fidgeted. "Well…it's actually about…Draco Malfoy." He related to his professor everything he had witnessed in Knocturn Alley and on the Hogwarts Express._

"_And your point in telling me this is…?"_

"_Malfoy is obviously a Death Eater!" Harry exploded._

_Snape stared at him impassively. "And what proof do you have of this?"_

"_What proof—? I just told you what he was saying on the train, didn't I? And the way he was holding his arm—I know he's got a Dark Mark on it, just like you!"_

_Severus's eyes narrowed slightly. "You know no such thing, Harry. You would do well to recognize the difference between knowledge and pure speculation."_

"_But surely _you_ must know it," said Harry. "Vol—He thinks you're working for him. You would know if Malfoy became a Death Eater!"_

"_Certainly I would," said Severus. "If he had."_

"_Are you saying he hasn't, then?" said Harry. No. He had been so _sure_. He _was_ sure!_

"_I am saying that whether he has or he has not, it is of no concern of yours. The doings of the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters are being closely monitored."_

"_By you."_

"_Precisely."_

"_But it sounded like he was planning—"_

"_It is none of your concern, Harry."_

"_But—"_

"_End of discussion."_

_Harry glared mutinously at his professor. "I know there's something you're keeping from me."_

"_Know all you want, Harry, I will say no more on the matter. You may leave."_

_And a very disgruntled Harry had no choice but to do so._

_*****CTU*****_

"_I tell you, Snape just as good as told me that Malfoy is a Death Eater!"_

"_That's not what it sounds like to me," said Hermione. "It sounds like he told you to keep your nose out of other people's business. And I have to say that I agree with him."_

"_As much as I hate to say it, mate, so do I," said Ron._

_Harry gritted his teeth. Malfoy _was_ a Death Eater and he _was_ up to something, no matter what anyone else said._

*****CTU*****

Well, he had been right about that," Harry thought, the knowledge not bringing him much comfort as he lay on his back in the spell-protected tent, listening to the rain. Malfoy had been a Death Eater assigned the task of killing Dumbledore. Not that he had done a particularly good job of it; but what did it matter, when Severus Snape was more than willing to pick up the slack?

*****CTU*****

"_So, what did you find out about the necklace?"_

_Snape looked up from the papers he was grading. "Good evening to you too, Harry."_

"_Good evening," said Harry hurriedly. "The necklace?"_

"_Patience is a virtue, Harry," said Severus, making a last mark on the paper in front of him and then pushing the stack aside. "The necklace," said Snape after a lengthy pause, "was cursed."_

"_I _know_ that!" said Harry impatiently. "Do you know who cursed it?"_

"_It appears to have been cursed by whoever created it."_

"_Do you know who sent it though?"_

"_I have my suspicions."_

"_Well?"_

"_Well, I think it is time to start our Occlumency lesson. Wand out, please."_

*****CTU*****

Yes, go ahead, avoid the topic, thought Harry savagely. That's always been your specialty. That and lying through your teeth.

*****CTU*****

_Professor Trelawney and Professor Slughorn, not exactly the two people Harry would have chosen to have a conversation with. Unfortunately, these were exactly the two people who were now standing on either side of them, discussing the merits of and Harry's skills (or lack-there-of) in their respective subjects._

"_Instinctive, you know, just like his mother!" Slughorn was saying, causing Harry to feel distinctly hot around the collar. "I've only ever taught a few with this kind of ability, I can tell you that, Sybill—why even Severus—"_

_Harry's dismay at the situation quadrupled as he suddenly found Snape pulled into their little group._

_As Slughorn continued to expound upon Harry's exceptional skill in Potions, Snape caught Harry with his shrewd gaze, a pointed question in the deep, black eyes._

_Luckily the conversation veered off into Harry's other classes, which, as Snape noted blandly, were all of the ones he needed to become an Auror._

"_Yeah, well, that's what I'd like to do," said Harry, shrugging._

"_And a great one you'll make too!" said Slughorn in his drunken boom._

"_I don't think you should be an Auror," said Luna suddenly from beside him. Harry started slightly; he had forgotten she was there. "The Aurors are part of the Rotfang Conspiracy, I thought everyone knew that. They're working to bring down the Ministry of Magic from within using a combination of Dark Magic and gum disease."_

_Harry laughed, choking on his mead as he did so. Leave it to Luna to turn a rather uncomfortable discussion into a hilarious one with one statement._

_When Harry finally recovered, he saw something that made his grin grow even wider: Draco Malfoy was being dragged across the room toward them by a gleefully quivering Argus Filch._

"_Alright, I wasn't invited!" said Malfoy angrily, wrenching himself away from Filch. "I was trying to gatecrash, happy?"_

"_No, I'm not!" said Filch, even though he obviously was. His happiness diminished slightly, however, when Slughorn waved a large hand and allowed Malfoy to stay. What intrigued Harry, however, was that Malfoy did not look at all pleased with this outcome. And what was with the look Snape was giving Malfoy? It was more than anger, there was something deeper there, like the kinds of looks Snape sometimes gave him…_

_Before Harry had time to ponder this more thoroughly, the expression vanished and Malfoy was thanking (and sucking up to) Slughorn for allowing him to stay. Harry watched the blonde through his fringe. He looked pale, even more so than usual, almost ill…_

"_I'd like a word with you, Draco," Snape cut in, interrupting whatever Slughorn had been saying._

"_Oh, now, Severus, it's Christmas, don't be too hard—"_

"_I'm his Head of House, and I shall decide how hard, or otherwise, to be," said Snape shortly. "Follow me, Draco."_

_He led Malfoy away and, after a brief pause, Harry excused himself and hurried after them. He knew that Snape would have his hide if he caught him spying on him, but he just couldn't resist. That damn curiosity._

_Covered by the Invisibility Cloak, Harry ran down the corridor, hoping that Snape hadn't taken Malfoy too far away. He was in luck; after a minute he located their voices behind a closed classroom door._

"…_cannot afford mistakes, Draco, because if you are expelled—"_

_Harry held his breath, pressing his ear closer to the cool metal of the keyhole._

"_I didn't have anything to do with it, all right?"_

_What hadn't Malfoy had anything to do with? What did Snape suspect him of?_

"_I hope you are telling the truth, because it was both clumsy and foolish. Already you are suspected in having a hand in it."_

_Having a hand in _what_?_

"_Who suspects me?" demanded Malfoy's voice, sharp with anger. "For the last time, I didn't do it, okay? That Bell girl must've had an enemy no one knows about it—"_

_Bell? Katie! The necklace! So Snape _did_ suspect Malfoy of sending it! Harry felt annoyed and smug at the same time._

_Malfoy and Snape continued to argue, and with every word it became more and more clear, Draco _was_ a Death Eater, he had to be! Snape was offering to help him, obviously so that he could find out more about what he was doing. _

You could have told me_, thought Harry grumpily. But even as he thought it he knew why Snape hadn't. Just like he wouldn't have gone talking to Malfoy about Harry behind his back; he would see whatever Malfoy was doing as none of Harry's concern. A sentiment he had already expressed more than once._

Bother Snape and his secrecy_, thought Harry._

_Suddenly Harry's thoughts were broken by the sound of Malfoy's footsteps. He barely had time enough to throw himself aside before the door flew open and Malfoy came striding out of it, followed by Snape. It was only after they had both been out of sight for several minutes that Harry finally picked himself up off the floor and headed back toward Slughorn's Christmas party, now even less in the mood for it than he had been before._

_*****CTU*****_

"_Okay," said Ron. "I believe you that Malfoy's up to something. You said Snape was offering to help him?"_

"_Only so that he could find out what his plan is," said Harry impatiently. "But this proves I'm right! Malfoy _is_ a Death Eater."_

"_It does look that way," admitted Ron. "What exactly did Snape say to him?"_

"_A bunch of stuff," said Harry, not nearly as concerned with what Snape had said as with what Malfoy was up to. "He basically accused Malfoy of sending the necklace that cursed Katie, talked a bit about Occlumency, offered—almost insisted—to help him, mentioned something about an Unbreakable Vow—"_

"_An Unbreakable Vow?" demanded Ron._

"_That's what he said," said Harry. "He said he'd made an Unbreakable Vow to Malfoy's mum. What does it mean? Is it important?"_

"_Yeah it's important!" said Ron. "You can't break an Unbreakable Vow—"_

"_No, really?" said Harry dryly. "I hadn't realized. What happens if you do break it?"_

"_You die," said Ron._

_*****CTU*****_

_Harry debated all Christmas break whether to confront Snape about what he had seen. Finally he came to the conclusion that such an action would accomplish nothing other than making his professor extremely angry with him. Instead he decided to keep an eye on Malfoy himself. After all, surely even Snape could use a hand sometimes, even if he was unaware that it was being given. This perfectly logical reasoning didn't stop him from feeling guilty about hiding things from Snape._

Merling, how far we've come…

_*****CTU*****_

_Harry's skills at Occlumency, while still altogether shoddy in comparison with Snape's, were improving at a steady pace. He was no longer waking up in the middle of the night in cold sweats, visions seen through Lord Voldemort's eyes still playing in his mind's eye. He was even able to keep Snape from finding out about his obsession with what Malfoy was up to, though it occurred to him that this might have more to with Snape's recent air of distraction than with any real prowess on Harry's part._

_The Defense Against the Dark Arts professor seemed to be under an even greater amount of stress than usual lately. It wasn't something that would have been obvious to the casual observer, but to Harry, whose relationship with Snape had progressed past that of mere teacher and student some time ago, it was almost obvious._

"_Professor," said Harry, as Snape lowered his want after his latest round of Legilimency and used the thumb and forefinger of his other hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, "are you alright?"_

"_I am quite well, Harry," said Snape waspishly. "I merely have a slight headache."_

"_You shouldn't work so hard with a migraine," said Harry._

"_I never said it was a migraine," said Snape._

"_I know."_

_Severus scowled at the teenager. "How did I ever manage to get saddled with you, Potter?" he said with no real malice._

_Harry shrugged, by now used to the man's insults-that-really-weren't. "Extraordinarily bad luck?"_

"_For whom, I wonder?" Snape muttered. He sank into his chair, closing his eyes and massaging his temples. "You've done well today, Harry."_

"_Er, thank you, sir," said Harry, surprised by the compliment. He expected Snape to dismiss him, but when he didn't he ventured, "Er, Professor, is something the matter?"_

"'_Er' is not a word, Harry," said Snape without opening his eyes._

_Harry rolled his eyes, something he wouldn't have dared to do had his professor's own eyes been open. "Is something the matter, then?"_

"_What makes you ask?"_

"_Well…" said Harry slowly. "You've been…distracted lately, as though you've got something on your mind."_

"_I have many things on my mind, Harry, few of them good."_

_Harry nodded his acknowledgement, though his professor could not see. "Something new, I mean. Ha—I mean, someone said you were arguing with Professor Dumbledore."_

_Severus opened his eyes. "Who said I was arguing with the Headmaster?"_

"_No one," said Harry quickly. "Just another student, don't remember his name."_

_Harry could tell that Snape was unconvinced, but he didn't push the issue. "A minor disagreement. Being a spy in the Dark Lord's ranks can be a…difficult and tiresome job."_

_Harry nodded fervently. He could only imagine._

"_You may go," said Severus after a few minutes of silence. "I'm sure you have work to be doing."_

_Harry nodded again, standing and hefting his book bag onto his shoulder. "See you later, professor," he said. "Feel better."_

_The smallest hint of a smile graced Snape's lips. "I shall try, Harry. Goodnight."_

_*****CTU*****_

_Snape's distraction served to Harry's advantage for approximately one month._

"_Harry, what was that?"_

"_What was what?" asked Harry, rubbing his forehead, which was aching slightly after Snape's latest onslaught._

"_That memory. The one which featured Mr. Malfoy and myself exiting a room at which you had been listening at the keyhole."_

"_Er…"_

"_How many times do I have to tell you, Harry, that 'er,' is not a word?"_

"_It was at Slughorn's Christmas party," said Harry, knowing he was caught and not wanting to dig his grave any deeper._

"_I am aware of that," said Severus. "What I am unsure of is what you were doing there, during what was supposed to be a private conversation between Mr. Malfoy and myself."_

"_I followed you," admitted Harry reluctantly._

"_Why? Besides out of a great desire to be severely punished."_

"_I wanted to know what Malfoy was up to!"_

"_You had no proof that he was 'up to' anything."_

"_I did after hearing that conversation!"_

"_Which you were _not_ meant to hear."_

"_Okay, I get it, I shouldn't have been eavesdropping, but Malfoy _is_ a Death Eater! I asked you and you wouldn't give me a straight answer, but I knew it! I…" Harry's next words died in his throat when he saw the expression on Snape's face._

"_Draco Malfoy," he said softly, leaning forward until he was invading Harry's personal space, "is a boy who has been made to face things he is too young to face—much like someone else I know."_

_Harry swallowed and nodded mutely._

"_This is the last time we will speak of this."_

_Harry nodded again._

"_Good," said Snape, rising to his feet and drawing his wand. "Wand up. Clear your mind. _Legilimens!_"_

*****CTU*****

"…_a boy who has been made to face things he is too young to face…"_

Harry listened to the rain running down the sides of the tent, making the fabric ripple overhead. He didn't know which were worse, the memories where he knew what he should have done differently, or the ones where he honestly had no clue. Should he have kept tracking Malfoy after that conversation with Snape? If he had would anything have turned out differently? Would he have learned the truth about Snape sooner? Harry doubted it, Snape had had him charmed just like Dumbledore and the rest; he didn't know if this made him feel better or worse.

It was a restless night for both occupants of the tent, the knowledge of the empty bed weighing down on them like a physical presence. And it was with bleary eyes and heavy hearts that the two of them packed up their belongings the next day and began to make plans for the next step of their seemingly never-ending journey.

**AN: Not really much to say here, hopefully you'll have more to say than I do, and will do so in a review ;)**

**-SQ**


	11. Chapter 11: Killing the Pain

**Author's Note: AHHHHHH! I am SO sorry for the wait. The end of the semester collided with my laptop breaking (yes, again) and me getting sick and I just had no time and no access to my non-finals essential files. It's summer now, so hopefully I'll have more time. At least over the next 6 weeks until I start work. Then I'll be super busy. Anyway, here is the next chapter, finally. I know it's short, but you'll see why pretty much immediately, and I think you'll like the reason.**

**-SQ**

**Disclaimer: I will never own _Harry Potter_**

**Chapter Eleven: Killing the Pain**

Severus Snape sat at his desk in the headmaster's office, drumming his fingers rhythmically against the pile of paperwork in front of him. When he realized what he was doing he stopped. He did _not_ engage in such nervous activities as finger drumming. He did not, but Harry Potter did. Somewhere along the line the blasted boy must have worn off on him.

The blasted boy was one of the reasons for his current anxiety. No one had seen neither hide nor hair of him, nor heard so much as a whisper as to his doings or whereabouts since the beginning of the school year. Severus supposed that this was a good thing; it meant that Harry was still on the run, managing to avoid all of the Ministry members, Death Eaters, and Snatchers attempting to find him and bring him into custody and ultimately to the Dark Lord, but it still set Severus's teeth on edge to think about it. First of all, Harry Potter had a greater knack for getting himself into dangerous situations than anyone else Severus had ever met. Except, he had to admit, if only privately, possibly himself. Granted, if wasn't _entirely_ Harry's fault; he hadn't asked to become the "Chosen One", but if Severus knew the impetuous Gryffindor, he was probably running _toward_ the Dark Lord rather than away from him.

Blast that prophesy!

Severus slammed his fist down on the desk, causing one of his piles of paperwork to go sliding to the floor. Angrily, he pointed his wand at it so that it flew back up and stacked itself neatly on the desk again. Severus glared at it. If only he had never heard that thrice-damned prophesy, if only that crazy bat had never made it in the first place, if only Severus had ever once in his youth actually bothered to _listen_ to the entirety of what someone was saying…

If only, if only, if only. Regrets had got him nowhere for seventeen years and they weren't going to get him anywhere now. No, that wasn't entirely true, they had gotten him one thing…something he had cast away as callously as he had the first time, only this time he had known exactly what he was doing.

_I'm trying to save your life Harry, don't go throw it away trying to be a hero._

Severus glanced at the empty portrait to his left. It usually housed the dour, sarcastic portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black, former headmaster of Hogwarts and ancestor to Harry's godfather, the late Sirius Black. But at the moment the canvass was empty, as its occupant was currently visiting his second portrait.

Severus knew very well where this second portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black was _supposed _to be located. It was supposed to be hanging on the wall of one of the bedrooms at number twelve Grimmauld Place, the former headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. Sirius Black, the former owner of the house, was dead, however, and the Order of the Phoenix no longer used number twelve Grimmauld Place as their headquarters. Albus Dumbledore, the Secret Keeper for the Order, was dead, which made every other member of the Order now a Secret Keeper. This included Severus, and as, as far as any of the other members knew, he was a double agent who had turned his cloak to work for the opposing side, the house was deemed unsafe. In Severus's opinion this was a wise decision, even if it was made on the basis of false information. Having over a dozen Secret Keepers running around hardly imbued one with confidence in the security of the location, especially when those dozen Secret Keepers included such individuals as Mundungus Fletcher.

In spite of the dubious security of the place, Harry and his two friends had returned to it after fleeing from the Death Eaters that summer and had spent several weeks living there. The more fools them, thought Severus with a bitter shake of his head. True, it had been convenient and reassuring for him, knowing where they were, but if he _had_ actually been the Dark Lord's loyal follower the three teenagers would have been captured and brought before the "Ministry" before they had even had time to formulate a plan of attack. As it was, Severus had lost track of them when they had left the house. The only thing he knew for sure was that they were on the move and they, for whatever reason, had taken Phineas Nigellus's portrait with them.

Severus glanced at the canvas again and found that it was no longer empty. The cynical, unsmiling face of Phineus Nigellus looked back at him from behind the frame.

"Well?" he demanded.

"Impatient today, aren't we?" said Phineus Nigellus sniffily. "It's the same news as last time. No clue where they are, but it's somewhere different than where they were before, I can tell you that much. At least they have the sense to keep moving."

"Moving right into danger, no doubt," growled Severus. "But they're safe? Harry's safe?"

"It appears so," said Phineas Nigellus with a shrug of his shoulders. "Or rather it sounds so-the Mudblood still insists on blindfolding me."

"Don't use that word!" snapped Severus.

"Very well," said Phineas Nigellus with another shrug. "The Granger girl, then. Oh, there was one point of interest."

"Yes?" said Severus urgently, actually leaning forward in his chair.

"The boy, not Potter, the other one, the Blood Traitor, Weasley I believe his name is, seems to have left."

"Left?" said Severus. "What do you mean, left?"

"I mean left, man," said Phineas Nigellus. "Gone away, departed."

"Why?" Severus couldn't imagine one of Harry's two friends just up and leaving him; the three were inseparable to a fault. "Was he captured?"

"Who knows," said Phineas Nigellus in a tone which also implied 'Who Cares'. "In any case, he is no longer with the other two."

Severus rubbed his temples against the migraine building there. Something else to look into, as if he didn't have enough on his plate already. "Very well," he said to Phineas Nigellus.

"Very well?" responded the portrait. "No 'thank you, Phineas Nigellus' or 'I appreciate your efforts, Phineas Nigellus'? You're as bad as the brats."

Severus waved him away. He had no time for pleasantries. He pulled one of the stacks of paperwork toward him. Punishment records from the Carrows. Neville Longbottom, Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood, Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnegan, Lavender Brown, Parvati and Padma Patil, Collin and Dennis Creevey… All Harry's friends whom he had left behind. And all members of the boy's not-so-secret-anymore Defense Against the Dark Arts group from two years previous. Severus signed the papers without reading them. He knew what they would contain and hadn't the stomach for it at the moment. He hadn't wanted to put the Carrow siblings in charge of punishment at Hogwarts; he hadn't wanted them to teach there at all. But, as with so many other things in his life, he hadn't had any choice in the matter. Severus knew what went on during the Carrows' detentions, and it made him sick just thinking about it. Say what you want about Severus's character, he knew he was an unkind, bitter, caustic man, but he did care about the students at his school in his own way. Unfortunately, there were only so many times he could intercede on the students' behalf before it raised suspicions, so he reserved his interferences for the most severe of cases. He had to leave their wellbeing mostly in the hands of the other professors, and pray to whomever was listening that it would be enough.

Severus glanced over at the cabinet containing the various potions he considered essential to have close at hand. He stood and crossed the room, extracting a half-empty vial and a goblet from the cabinet. He had once told Harry that he did not like to take pain-killing potions because it was too easy to become addicted to them. He poured half of the remaining purple liquid into the goblet and downed it in one swallow. Somehow he found that he no longer cared.

**AN: Yes, Severus POV! The next chapter will be another normal Harry flashback chapter. Thanks for reading, let me know you still are by reiviewing?**

**-SQ**


	12. Chapter 12: Everything Wrong

**Author's Note: Yes! Got it written! I kept meaning to write it & running out of time in the day, but I finally got it done. Hope you enjoy.**

**-SQ**

**Disclaimer: I will never own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter Twelve: Everything Wrong**

Harry could still not believe Ron was gone. He kept waking up in the mornings expecting to be greeted by his best friend's long-nosed, freckly face, only to have it hit him like a Bludger that Ron had left them. Every time. He and Hermione, by unspoken consent, had not mentioned Ron once in the days following his departure. Harry could tell that Hermione wanted to, but he didn't see what good discussing their absent friend would do; not that Harry was feeling particularly friendly toward him at the moment. On the contrary, he sometimes thought he would be perfectly content never to see the redhead again. Though that didn't stop him from checking the Marauder's Map every day to see if Ron's dot had reappeared. Strangely, it had yet to show up, and Harry more often than not found his attention drifting to the girls' dormitory, specifically the dot labeled Ginevra Weasley.

Besides the map, Harry and Hermione's only source of news about what was going on at Hogwarts and the rest of the Wizarding World was the portrait of Phineus Nigellus; hardly an ideal informant.

The fact that he and Hermione didn't seem to be getting anywhere in terms of locating Gryffindor's sword either did nothing to improve Harry's mood. Ron's parting words came back to him and he was forced to admit that he had been right; he _didn't_ have a plan, and Dumbledore had left him with almost nothing from which to make one. Every day their quest seemed more and more like a wild goose chase, and he cursed himself for allowing Ron and Hermione to accompany him on this pointless journey. He couldn't ever recall feeling this hopeless, and caught himself several times checking to see if there were dementors about. He almost wished there had been; dementors would have been a lot easier to deal with than this.

The only comfort he took was in watching the members of the DA on the Marauder's Map and hearing about their exploits from Phineas Nigellus. At least he had managed to do _something_ right, even if the group had originally been Hermione's idea.

*****CTU*****

_Umbridge was a world-class bitch. No contest, hands down Harry's least favorite teacher at Hogwarts. Ever. She was worse than Snape had been when he and Harry had still hated each other. Now of course, Snape was the one Harry was complaining to about the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor._

"_I am perfectly aware that it is 'not fair,' Harry," said Severus in an overly-patient voice that meant that his actual patience was wearing thin. "However, there is very little you or I can do about it. And by 'very little' I mean nothing at all."_

"_But—"_

"_Potter!" snapped Snape. Harry jumped slightly. Snape only called him by his last name in private when he was particularly angry. "I did not call you in here to throw yourself a pity party!"_

"_Then why did you call me in here?" said Harry. "Sir," he added quickly when his professor's eyes narrowed._

"_I called you in here," said Snape in an icy voice, "to ask you what in _hell's_ name _possessed_ you to shout at Professor Umbridge, call her a liar, and tell her that the Dark Lord is back!"_

"_She _is_ a liar!" said Harry before he could stop himself. "And he _is_ back! And I've already gotten a lecture from Professor McGonagall."_

_Severus pinched the bridge of his nose. "I am quite aware, Harry, the Professor Umbridge is a liar, a fraud, and an all-around unpleasant woman. And I am equally aware that the Dark Lord has returned. I also happen to know that Professor McGonagall has confronted you about the issue. However, I felt it my duty to reinforce the importance of holding your run-away tongue."_

"_Your duty?" said Harry. "You're not my Head of House."_

_Snape arched a brow. "No. I am not. I do, however, have a vested interest in your welfare."_

_Harry felt slightly ashamed. "Yes," he said grudgingly. "I know."_

"_And so I will reiterate Professor McGonagall's warning: Tread carefully around Dolores Umbridge. She is not to be trifled with, especially by you."_

"_And just what is that supposed to mean?" said Harry, feeling affronted._

"_It means that you would do better to keep your nose clean instead of trying to make even more enemies."_

"_Trying?" said Harry. "I don't _try_ to make enemies!"_

"_You could have fooled me," said Snape._

_*****CTU*****_

_In spite of his professors' warnings, Harry did not manage to keep his nose clean where Professor Umbridge was concerned. In fact, he landed himself in yet another round of detentions with her, which earned him another stern talking to by Snape. He wondered what the Potions Master would say if he knew just what went on in those ill-fated detentions. He was half-tempted to tell him, but his pride kept him from actually going through with it._

_*****CTU*****_

"_High Inquisitor! ?" raged Harry, pacing up and down Snape's office. "High Inquisitor! What kind of a position is that? Who gave her the authority to 'review' other teachers? Who gave her the right to treat you like that! ?"_

_Snape's mouth quirked in an almost amused fashion. "I appreciate your righteous indignation on my part, Harry, but it is unnecessary and not a small parrt ridiculous. As for who granted Professor Umbridge the authority, that would be the Minister of Magic."_

"_How can you be so calm about it?" fumed Harry._

"_Because I prefer to focus my energies on things which I actually have control over," returned Severus._

_Harry kicked the leg of the desk moodily. "I hate it when you're right."_

"_Call the press, the Boy Who Lived admits I am right."_

_If it had been anyone else Harry probably would have told him to go stuff himself. As it was Snape and Harry rather liked his head attached to his shoulders, he merely gave the Potion's Master a moody look, both thankful for and resentful of the fact that Snape was obviously not in as bad of a mood as he was._

*****CTU*****

Of course he was in a good mood, thought Harry bitterly, he, Harry, had been miserable.

*****CTU*****

_Over the past two years, Harry's presence in Snape's office had become, if not exactly a common occurrence, at least not a particularly uncommon one. So there was absolutely no reason for Harry to be experiencing a sinking sense of dread in the pit of his stomach as he walked along the dungeon corridor toward the Potions Master's rooms. Or at least that is what Harry kept telling himself as he drew closer to Snape's door. The second year Slytherin had merely told him that Professor Snape wanted to see him immediately. Not a cause for alarm in of itself, surely, but after everything that had happened to Harry in the past couple of weeks, he was inclined to be pessimistic._

_The look on Snape's face when he entered the room did nothing to dispel this feeling._

"_So," he said, arms crossed, eyes hooded, "have anything you'd like to share with me?"_

"_Er, no," said Harry, trying very hard not to quail under the Potion Master's formidable glare. "Nothing I can think of, no."_

"_Really?" said Snape, arching a thin brow. "No…secret, illegal Defense Against the Dark Arts societies, perhaps?"_

_Harry very nearly swore. Of course. He should have known that if Mundungus had informed Mrs. Weasley of the planned existence of the DA that other members had been informed of its formation as well. Namely, Severus Snape._

"_Well?" said Snape, boring into Harry with his dark, penetrating stare._

"_Erm…" said Harry._

"_Erm is—"_

"—_not a word, I know," said Harry quickly. "Look, Professor, I had to do something, we're not learning anything in Umbridge's class. At all! And Voldemort is back. And since I'm the only one who's actually ever fought him, it's kind of my duty to make sure other people are as prepared as they can be, right?"_

"_Your duty, Potter, is to stay alive and to _keep your nose clean_."_

"_I'm not giving it up," said Harry stubbornly, staring back at his professor. "The other students are counting on me to teach them about defense. I promised."_

"_And what makes you think that you are even qualified to do this teaching?" asked Snape, his arms folded over his chest._

"_Well…" said Harry. "I don't, really, but Hermione and Ron seem to think I am, and I _do_ know stuff that maybe a lot of the others don't know." He had a sudden idea. "You know loads about Defense Against the Dark Arts, maybe you could come and help me teach them some time?"_

_Severus shook his head. "Absolutely not. I have enough to deal with without associating myself with a bunch of brats who more likely than not are going to end up cursing each other's ears off. This is your can of worms, Harry. You opened it; you have to deal with it."_

_Harry did not miss the implications of this statement. "So…you're letting me continue?"_

"_Letting you?" said Snape, eyebrow rising again. "I thought you were 'not giving it up,' regardless of my wishes. Which are very much against it, by the way."_

"_Oh…" said Harry. "That's right. I'm not."_

"_Very well then," said Snape tiredly. "Heaven forbid I make you go back on a promise. But don't expect me to come running to your aid if you are caught."_

_Harry nodded, knowing this was the best he was going to get from his professor. "Yes sir. Thank you sir."_

"_Don't thank me," said Severus gruffly. "Go figure out how you are going to keep this group of yours a secret from our resident High Inquisitor."_

_Harry nodded again. "Yes sir. I will sir. See you later sir."_

"_See you later, Harry," said Severus. "And hope to Merlin that when I do you're not in even _more_ trouble."_

*****CTU*****

Maybe he wouldn't have gotten into so much trouble if he hadn't trusted a certain Potions Master so much…

*****CTU*****

_Harry was furious. Banned! ? _For life! ? _All because he had given Malfoy what was coming to him. Of course, a small voice in the back of his mind said that he should have known that Umbridge would use any excuse to punish him, however unfairly, and that he had been warned, but he pushed it ruthlessly aside._

_However, some things were not as easily pushed aside._

"_Potter!"_

_Harry's head snapped up. Snape was glowering at him from the end of the corridor. "A word if you please."_

"_I'm actually on my way to—"_

"Now_, Mr. Potter."_

_Harry sighed and followed his professor into an empty classroom._

"_Time and time again I tell you to keep your nose clean, and time and time again you flagrantly disobey me and get yourself into trouble!"_

"_Malfoy was insulting my parents!"_

"_That was no reason for you to attack him. If you had used your brains you would have realized that he was intentionally trying to provoke you. We sometimes have to be the bigger man, Harry."_

"_He insulted my mum," said Harry._

_A vein pulsed in Snape's temple and his teeth clenched. "Regardless…" he said, after taking several long breaths through his nose, "nothing is accomplished by engaging in fisticuffs except earning yourself more punishment."_

"_Don't I know it," said Harry._

"_This is your own fault," said Severus. "So don't expect any sympathy from me."_

_Harry didn't. "I do _try_, professor."_

"_Obviously you do not try hard enough."_

"_I—"_

"_Do you really want to finish that sentence, Harry?"_

_Harry swallowed and shook his head._

"_I thought not. You may leave."_

_Harry nodded and left. There were times when you simply didn't trifle with Snape, and this was obviously one of them._

_*****CTU*****_

_Harry did _not_ feel like going to his Occlumency lesson today. His pride and his hand had both already taken beatings, and he saw no reason that his mind also had to suffer. Unfortunately Snape had very little patience with whiners._

"_Wand up. Close your mind. Focus."_

"_I know," snapped Harry. "We've been doing this for weeks. Is it really necessary to tell me that _every time_?"_

"_Yes," said Snape coldly. "And it will continue to be necessary until you actually _do_ as I ask of you."_

"_I'm trying!" said Harry in frustration._

"_Well try harder," said Snape. "Again."_

_Harry gritted his teeth. It was a little hard to concentrate on Occlumency when his hand was throbbing painfully. _Umbridge_ should be the one with "I must not tell lies" engraved into her—SLAM!_

_Harry was nearly knocked off his feet by the unexpected force of Snape's onslaught. He tried to raise his mental shields, but it was too late, Snape was already seeing his thoughts and memories. The image of Umbridge's quill carving the letters into his skin rose to the forefront of his mind. And then Snape had retreated as suddenly as he had attacked._

"_What was that?" he demanded as Harry struggled to catch his breath._

"_What?"_

"_You know perfectly well what," said Snape, not amused. And Harry did._

"_That was my detention with Umbridge," said Harry, shooting for nonchalance and missing the mark entirely._

"_Let me see your hand," said Snape._

"_Er, is that really necessary, sir?" said Harry._

"_Hand," said Snape. "Now."_

_Reluctantly, Harry held out his left hand for inspection. Severus took the thin wrist in his firm grip and pushed back the sleeve of Harry's robe. When he saw the writing etched there his fingers tightened._

"_Ouch," complained Harry. "You're hurting me."_

_Snape released him, looking disgusted. "That despicable woman."_

"_That's what I said," said Harry, rubbing his wrist._

"_Why did you not inform me of this at once?"_

"_As you keep saying, 'what could you do?'" said Harry. "And I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of knowing I went off crying to an adult about it."_

"_Adults are here for a reason, Harry."_

"_To help me, yeah, I know. But honestly, Professor, the majority of them don't actually seem to do much."_

_Harry could see in his eyes that his professor acknowledged the truth in this statement. "Do you have any more detentions scheduled with Professor Umbridge?" he asked stiffly._

"_No," said Harry. "This was my last one." For now._

"_If she gives you any more you are to come straight to me, you understand? She will not hurt you like that again." Snape's eyes flashed dangerously._

"_Yes sir," said Harry, who had no intention of doing anything of the kind. "You're not going to tell Professor Dumbledore?"_

_Severus grimaced. "As you pointed out," he said, his voice caustic and bitter, "what good would it do?"_

*****CTU*****

At the time Harry had assumed that Snape hadn't told Dumbledore because Harry didn't want him to. Naïve, to say the least. Now he was sure Snape had just enjoyed seeing him suffer.

*****CTU*****

"_Harry Potter…she…she…"_

"_Who's 'she', Dobby? Umbridge? Is she coming?"_

"_Yes, Harry Potter, yes!"_

"_WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? RUN!"_

_It was near pandemonium after that, with DA members running every which way down the corridor in hopes of escaping Umbridge. Miraculously, they all managed it. Well, almost all._

"_AAARGH!"_

"_Trip Jinx, Potter!" said Malfoy, smirking down at Harry, who had landed painfully at his feet. "Hey, Professor—PROFESSOR! I've got one!"_

_Internally, Harry swore. This was not good. This was not good at all. Umbridge came trundling around the corner, looking criminally happy, and clasped Harry's forearm in a meaty hand. "You hop along and see if you can round up any more of them, Draco," she said in a sickeningly sweet voice that made Harry want to gag. "Tell the others to look in the library—anybody out of breath—check the bathrooms, Miss Parkinson can do the girls' ones—off you go." She turned to Harry, the grin sliding off her face like melted cheese, her eyes narrowing to pinpricks inside her toad-like face. "And you," she hissed in his face; even her breath was sickeningly sweet. "You can come with me to the headmaster's office, Potter."_

_As he didn't really have a choice in the matter, Harry followed Umbridge through the corridors and then past the stone gargoyles and up the revolving staircase to Dumbledore's office. _

_When they entered Harry saw that Dumbledore was not the only occupant. Professors McGonagall and Snape were also there, along with Cornelius Fudge, Kingsley Shacklebolt, an unfamiliar wizard, and, of all people, Percy Weasley._

_As soon as the door shut behind them Harry shrugged off Umbridge's hands, confident that she wouldn't do anything too awful to him in front of so many witnesses._

"_Well. Well, well, well…" said Fudge, giving Harry a viciously satisfied glare._

_Harry glared back at him, standing ramrod straight. If he was caught he was caught; he wasn't going to give them the added satisfaction of seeing him cower. _

_Harry barely listened as Umbridge explained how she and Malfoy had caught him, staring stonily ahead at the wall. He almost missed Fudge's question of "I expect you know why you are here?"_

_Harry had opened his mouth to proclaim that yes, he did know why he was there and he was proud of it, when he caught sight of Snape out of the corner of his eye. The Potions Master's head jerked sharply, infinitesimally, from left to right, just once, his eyes deep, emotionless pools inside his pale face._

"_Yeh—no," said Harry._

"_I beg your pardon?" said Fudge._

"_No," said Harry again._

"_You _don't_ know why you are here?" said the Minister incredulously._

"_No, I don't," said Harry._

_He continued to deny having done anything wrong as Fudge grilled him. At one point he glanced to his right and caught Snape's eye and could have sworn he saw a glimmer of satisfaction in the inky depths. Harry felt slightly cheated of his opportunity to announce his defiance to the Minister and Umbridge, but he still felt that things were going rather well. Not only were Fudge and Umbridge unable to get anything more out of him, they were unable to get anything more out of Marietta Edgecombe, Cho's friend who had originally tipped them off about the meeting, either. Yes, everything was going rather well, all considering. That is until Umbridge pulled out the list naming every member of the DA._

_That's when things started to go downhill. Fast. And before Harry knew it Dumbledore was taking the blame for forming the group, he was telling Fudge to arrest him, and then _resisting_ arrest. He had incapacitated Fudge, Kingsley, and the other Auror… Then Dumbledore was telling Harry urgently to study Occlumency, to listen to Snape. The headmaster grabbed his arm and pain raced through his scar, a longing to strike out rising up inside of him…but before he had done more than register it the Headmaster and his phoenix were gone and the unconscious adults on the floor were beginning to stir._

_In the pandemonium that followed Harry felt a long-fingered hand close on his arm._

"_Come along, Harry," said Snape's voice in his ear as he guided him past McGonagall, Fudge, and Umbridge and out of the room. "It is high time you were in bed. You have caused enough trouble for one day."_

_Harry followed without comment, feeling wracked with guilt. "Professor, I didn't mean for that to happen! We shouldn't have started the group in the first place—"_

"_No, you shouldn't have."_

"_We shouldn't have named it Dumbledore's Army."_

"_No, you shouldn't have."_

"_I'll disband it right away, I promise."_

_Severus stopped, turning Harry around to face him. "No you will not."_

"_Huh?" said Harry, taken aback._

"_You started this thing and you are damn well going to finish it," said Snape._

"_But Umbridge—"_

"_You didn't let her stop you before."_

_He had a point. Still…_

"_Harry, you are going to continue to run this 'Dumbledore's Army' of yours, that is a command, you understand?"_

_Harry nodded. "Yes sir."_

_Severus released him and gave him a push. "Good. Now go to bed. I don't want to see you breaking the rules again."_

_Seeing as Snape had just ordered him to do something that was not only against the rules, but actually violated Ministry decree, the message behind this statement was pretty clear: Don't get caught again. And Harry had no intention of doing so._

*****CTU*****

And they hadn't gotten caught again, though how much of that was due to Snape's subtle interference was debatable, since it wasn't long after that that he and Harry almost came to blows over the memories Harry saw in the Pensieve. Harry very much liked to think that it was he and not Snape who had kept the DA from being discovered again. It _had_ been him. Well, him and Ron and Hermione. Great, he was back to thinking about Ron again. He just couldn't win, could he?

**AN: I have a request. If any of you are artistically inclined and would like to make me cover art for this or any of my other stories, I would be much obliged. Thank you, and remember the review button ;)**

**-SQ**


	13. Chapter 13: Nagini

**Author's Note: Aaaaargh! I _finally_ got the time to write this, over several sittings, and the internet is down so I can't post it. *Anger* This will be posted when I get internet. Until then I will continue to glare at my screen and wish I could post it, since you guys have obviously waited long enough for it. It's hard to find time to write while I'm working at camp, very hard, but I'm trying.**

**-SQ**

**Disclaimer: While I am now the proud (and giddy) owner of my customized Pottermore wand, I still don't own _Harry Potter_**

**Chapter Thirteen: Nagini**

_The night was wet and windy, two children dressed as pumpkins waddling across the square, and the shop windows covered in paper spiders, all the tawdry Muggle trappings of world in which they did not believe… And he was gliding along, that sense of purpose and power and rightness in him that he always knew on these occasions…_

_The gate creaked a little as he pushed it open, but James Potter did not hear. His white hand pulled out the wand beneath his cloak and pointed it at the door, which burst open…_

"_Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!"_

"_Avada Kedavra!"_

…_He could hear her screaming from the upper floor, trapped, but as long as she was sensible, she, at least, had nothing to fear…_

_He forced the door open, cast aside the chair and boxes hastily piled against it with a wave of his wand…_

"_Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"_

"_Stand aside, you silly girl…stand aside, now."_

"_Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead—"_

"_This is my last warning—"_

"_Not Harry! Please…have mercy... Not Harry! Not Harry! Please—I'll do anything—"_

"_Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!"_

_The green light flashed around the room…the child stood, clutching the bars of his crib... He pointed his wand…_

"_Avada Kedavra!"_

"No… No… No…"

"Harry, it's alright, you're alright!"

"No…I dropped it… I dropped it…"

"Harry, it's okay, wake up, wake up!"

Harry…he was Harry…not Voldemort, not a snake, Harry.

He opened his eyes and saw Hermione's anxious face hovering inches from his own. "Harry, do you feel all—all right?" Her voice was low, as though she was speaking to someone on their deathbed.

"Yes," said Harry, thought he felt nothing of the sort.

He sat up and looked around, doing his best to ignore the aching in his head and the sick feeling in his stomach. He was in one of the lower bunks in the tent; the pile of sheets and blankets covering him drenched in sweat. He shivered.

"We got away," he said, making his voice sound as normal as he could; the look on Hermione's face unnerved him almost as much as the dream (memory?) he had just had.

Hermione was talking. "You haven't been quite… You've been ill. Quite ill."

Harry felt suddenly embarrassed. "How long ago did we leave?"

"Hours ago. It's nearly morning."

Hermione continued to talk, but mercifully she changed the subject to the Horcrux and then to their ill-fated trip to Godric's Hollow.

"What happened, Harry? What happened when she took you upstairs? Was the snake hiding somewhere? Did it just come out and kill her and attack you?"

"No," said Harry slowly, remembering the events of the previous night with horrifying clarity. "_She_ was the snake…or the snake was her…all along."

That snake. Voldemort's snake. It always seemed to be there, both in real life and in his dreams. He had even _been_ the snake in one of his dreams once, been the snake as it had attacked and nearly killed his (then?) best friend's father.

*****CTU*****

"_Harry! HARRY!"_

_His eyes snapped open; his limbs were still thrashing against the bedclothes that had somehow wrapped around him in a stranglehold._

"_Harry!"_

Shadowy, pain-obscured figures stood by his bed. One of them was Ron, his face white. Harry gave a _muted groan of pain and rolled over, vomiting onto the floor._

"_He's really ill. Should we call someone?"_

"_Harry. _Harry_!"_

_Harry levered himself into a sitting position, despite the blinding pain in his scar. "Your dad," he gasped, squinting at Ron. "Your dad's been…attacked…"_

"_What?"_

"_Your dad!" said Harry urgently. "He's been bitten, it's serious, there was blood everywhere…"_

_Other people were talking, but Harry only had room in his head for the pain and convincing Ron of what he had seen. Something Ron seemed determined not to believe._

"_Harry, mate, you…you were just dreaming!"_

"_No!" Why didn't anyone listen ever to him? "It wasn't a dream…not an ordinary dream…I was there, I saw it… I _did_ it…" He shuddered at the memory. _

_He shivered and retched again, but the pain was slowly receding; he could see now, and what he saw was Ron looking at him as though he had gone crazy._

"_Snape," he said suddenly. "Get Snape." Snape would listen to him. Snape would _do_ something._

"_Snape?" said Ron, his voice laden with skepticism. "Harry, you're not well. Neville's gone for help…"_

"_There's nothing wrong with me," he said, brushing off Ron's concern about his health, "it's your dad you've got to worry about—we need to find out where he is—" He swung his legs over the side of the bed, determined to go and find Snape himself. "He's bleeding like mad—I was—it was a huge snake…"_

"_Harry!" said Ron, standing in front of him so that he could not stand. "Just…just calm down…"_

_This was too much, Dean and Seamus whispering, Ron not believing him, not letting him get out of bed…_

_Then the door opened and Professor McGonagall appeared, her tartan dressing gown whisking behind her. "What is it, Potter? Where does it hurt?"_

_Harry launched right into his explanation. "It's Ron's dad. He's been attacked by a snake and it's serious, I saw it happen—"_

_Professor McGonagall asked him several more questions, but at the end of it she seemed to believe him. He breathed a sigh of relief and then scrambled out of bed, barely taking the time to pull on his dressing gown before following Professor McGonagall and Ron out of the dormitory._

_Harry had to fight the urge to sprint all the way to Dumbledore's office. Or to Snape's. Every second that past was a second that Mr. Weasley lay bleeding on the floor in that hallway. So intent was he on getting to the headmaster, as that was where McGonagall has decided they were going, and doing _something _that he didn't notice another figure appearing in front of them until he had literally walked into it._

"_Ahem."_

_Harry started and looked up into the dark eyes of his Potions Master._

"_And what is the reason behind this little midnight parade?"_

_Harry was so relieved to see the imposing figure of his professor that he nearly threw his arms around him. "Ron's dad—" he panted. "A huge snake—blood everywhere—"_

"_Speak coherently, Potter, or do not speak at all."_

_Harry took a deep breath. "There was a snake, it was huge, I saw it attack Ron's dad. There was blood everywhere. We need to help him now!"_

_Snape considered the teenager in front of him. "I take it you are on your way to the headmaster's office?" Harry nodded. "In that case I shall accompany you."_

_The two adults and two students continued down the corridor until they arrived at the stone gargoyle, Professor McGonagall gave the password (Fizzing Whizbee), and they stepped onto the moving staircase behind it._

_The staircase spiraled up toward the top of the tower, depositing them outside of Dumbledore's office door; from behind the door came the sound of voices. Professor McGonagall stepped forward and knocked the knocker three times against the door. The voices stopped. Then the door swung open and Snape and McGonagall led the way inside the office._

_Though the lights in the room were low, and the instruments scattered around the space were still and silent, Dumbledore was seated at his desk, clad in a purple-and gold dressing gown, but very much awake._

"_Oh, it's you, Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape…and…ah…"_

"_Professor Dumbledore," said Professor McGonagall haltingly, "Potter has had a…well…"_

"_A nightmare," said Snape succinctly._

_Harry cringed. "It wasn't a nightmare," he interrupted before he could stop himself._

_Snape gave him a displeased look._

_Harry swallowed. "I mean…I was asleep…" he said haltingly, desperate to make the adults in the room realize the urgency of the situation. Snape's dark piercing eyes were fixed unblinkingly on him, but Dumbledore was, to Harry's annoyance, looking down at his hands. "But it wasn't an ordinary dream," he pressed on, trying to find the words that would make Snape and Dumbledore and McGongall believe him, that would press them into action. "It was real, I saw it happen." Dumbledore was still looking downwards, so Harry met Professor Snape's eyes instead. "Ron's dad—Mr. Weasley—has been attacked by a giant snake."_

_Snape and Dumbledore shared a significant look._

"_What did the snake look like?" asked Snape._

"_I don't know," said Harry. "Why does it matter?"_

"_Surely you know what it looked like if you saw it attack Mr. Weasley," said Snape, looking intently at Harry._

_Harry squirmed. "Well…I…not exactly…"_

"_How _did _you see it, then?" asked Snape quietly._

_Harry swallowed. "I was the snake," he said, unable to look at anyone, especially Ron, as he did so. "I saw it all from the snake's point of view, that's why I didn't see what it looked like."_

_Dumbledore and Snape shared another significant look._

"_Is Arthur seriously injured?" said Dumbledore, so suddenly and sharply that Harry jumped._

"_Yes!" he shouted, then instantly regretted it as Snape's black eyes were turned disapprovingly on him once more. But really, didn't they understand that something needed to be done now?_

_And then finally something was being done. Dumbledore leapt from his chair and began giving orders to some of the portraits on the walls behind him. He then explained who exactly these two portraits had been when they were alive, but Harry was much too anxious to listen properly, not to mention rather annoyed with Dumbledore. Only the steady, calming presence of Professor Snape kept him from going crazy with nerves while they all waited for the two portraits' inhabitants to return._

The seventeen-year-old Harry mentally snorted. If only he had known.

_Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Snape continued their unintelligible discussion for some time while Harry became more and more anxious. Just when he thought he wouldn't be able to stand one more second of waiting, one of the former headmasters popped back into sight._

"_Dumbledore!"_

_Harry listened anxiously as first the wizard and then the witch recounted what they knew of Mr. Weasley's condition. It was a blur of action after that. McGonagall went to wake the rest of the Weasley siblings while Dumbledore rifled around in a cupboard near the door. Snape stepped toward the wall of portraits hung behind Dumbledore's desk._

"_Phineas," he said sharply. "_Phineas. _Phineas Nigellus!"_

_A clever-looking wizard wearing Slytherin silver and green opened his eyes a crack. "You are not the headmaster."_

"_The headmaster is occupied," said Snape shortly. "He wishes you to visit your other portrait."_

"_And if I say no?"_

"_Let me rephrase that, the headmaster _requires _you to visit your other portrait."_

_The recalcitrant portrait continued to argue with Snape, but not for very long. After a few more snarky comments that gave the potions master a run for his money, the wizard in the portrait disappeared from his frame. No sooner had the hem of his robes vanished from sight than the door opened again and Fred, George, and Ginny entered, followed by Professor McGonagall._

_They all opened their mouths to ask Harry what was going on, but before they could get more than a couple of words out Dumbledore took over the explanation, for which Harry was extremely grateful._

_Dumbledore then proceeded to explain where they were going and how there were going to get there, but Harry was only half paying attention. When Dumbledore asked them all to put their hands on the Portkey, Snape touched Harry on the shoulder. "Breathe, Potter, you passing out will not help matters."_

_Harry nodded, taking several deep breaths in through his nose. "Are you coming with us?"_

_Severus allowed his nose to wrinkle ever-so-slightly. "I had better not. The owner of the house and I are not on the best of terms and I have spent enough time there over the past several months. I will handle things on this end."_

"_Then when will I see you again?"_

_Severus briefly squeezed Harry's shoulder. "Perhaps I will stop by for Christmas."_

_Harry nodded. "See you then, Professor."_

"_See you then, Harry."_

*****CTU*****

"Harry. Harry. _Harry_."

"Sorry, what?"

"Are you okay?"

Harry nodded, though he felt anything but. He threw the covers off of himself and made to slide out of the bed.

"Harry, no, I'm sure you ought to rest!"

Harry shook his head. "No, I've been resting. I don't think I could fall asleep again now, and I'm not eager to. You're the one who needs sleep. No offense, but you look terrible. As I said, I'm fine. It's my turn to keep watch anyway. Where's my wand?

Little did he know what a loaded question _that_ would be. And so he ended up sitting outside the tent, Hermione's wand laid across his knees, trying not to think of Snape or Dumbledore or Ron or Voldemort or his wand…trying not to think of anything at all.

**AN: So the good news is that I have most of the next chapter written already, the bad news is that I will still update my other stories in order before I finish/revise it and post it. Provided I have internet then. Also, my lack of time & internet is delaying my review replies, but I _will_ get to them eventually, so please do still send your lovely reviews ;)**

**-SQ**


	14. Chapter 14: Green, Red, and Silver

**Author's Note: Okay, my update order is all screwed up now. This chapter, as I said before was mostly a written ages ago, but then my computer broke (yes, _again_) and somehow this document didn't make it onto the flashdrive, so I couldn't revise and edit it and post it until now. Now I have _another_ new computer, and this one had better f-ing not have any issues ever! Anyway, here is the chapter, a decent length and full of Severus.**

**-SQ**

**Disclaimer: Means what you think it means**

**Chapter Fourteen: Green, Red, and Silver**

Severus Snape stood in front of his desk in the headmaster's office, staring broodingly out of the window. Contrary to what many believed, he had never aspired to the post of Headmaster of Hogwarts, but nonetheless, the beginning of this year had found him holding the position, in the worst of circumstances.

Severus glanced once more at the emtpy portrait to his left. It usually Phineas Nigellus Black's caustic-mannered portrait, but its sour-tempered occupant had been summoned away to his other portrait ten minutes ago.

This was the main reason for Severus's brooding. Although Phineas Nigellus's portrait was supposed to be hanging on the wall of a spare bedroom in number twelve Grimmauld Place, it was in fact traveling across the British countryside in the bag of an eighteen-year-old girl named Hermione Granger. Severus didn't particularly care about the whereabouts and well-being of Hermione Granger, although he didn't particularly wish her ill, but he cared very much about the whereabouts and well-being of Miss Granger's traveling companion. Harry Potter.

Over the past few months, the only knowledge Severus had been able to receive about the boy had been through Phineas Nigellus's reports. These reports were sorely lacking on details, as the teenagers though reckless, were far from stupid, and knew that Phineas Nigellus's second portrait hung in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts. Like everyone else in the wizarding world, excepting the late Albus Dumbledore and himself, Harry and Hermione believed Severus to be the right hand man of Lord Voldemort, and so kept Phineas Nigellus's eyes covered at all times and were careful not to reveal their location to the portrait.

The fact that Harry believed this of him caused Severus a pain that was not mitigated by the fact that this belief was essential for the success of the plan.

Headmaster!" said a breathless voice from his left. Severus whirled around to face the portrait Phineus Nigellus, which was now occupied by its subject.

"They are camping in the Forest of Dean!" continued the former headmaster urgently. "The Mudblood—"

"Do not use that word!" snapped Severus sharply. He knew the reminder would have no impact of the portrait's contempt for those witches and wizards of Muggle parentage, but he would not tolerate the use of that word in his presence.

"The Granger girl, then," amended Phineus Nigellus, sounding unperturbed, "mentioned the place as she opened her bag and I heard her!"

Severus opened his mouth to reply, but another portrait, this one situated just behind the headmaster's chair, spoke first. "Good. Very good! Now, Severus, the sword! Do not forget that it must be taken under conditions of need and valor—and he must not know that you give it! If Voldemort should read Harry's mind and see you acting for him—"

"I know," said Snape, perhaps a touch more sharply than he had intended. He did not like being interrupted, and this whole affair was setting him on edge. Maintaining the façade, watching the Carrow siblings beat and torture _his_ students while meanwhile Harry went gallavanting about who-knew-where attempting to bring down the most powerful dark wizard who ever lived. Protecting the boy had been so much easier when he had been safe in the castle and Severus had still despised the sight of him. Now what he wouldn't give for the chance to see with his own eyes that Harry was still alive and whole.

Well, he might be getting that chance very shortly.

Severus strode over to Dumbedore's portrait and swung it forward, revealing a hidden compartment inside which the sword of Godric Gryffindor rested. He removed the sword and tucked it into his robes, donning a traveling cloak and drawing his wand.

"And you still aren't going to tell me why it's so important to give Potter the sword?" Severus demanded of the most recent headmaster's portrait, a hint of ire coloring his tone.

"No, I don't think so," said Dumbledore, that infuriating twinkle appearing for just an instant in his painted eye. "He will know what to do with it. And Severus, be careful, Harry may not take kindly to your appearance after everything that has happened—"

"Don't worry, Dumbledore," said Severus, his face not betraying any of the pain that simple sentence and the memories and emotions it evoked caused him, "I have a plan…"

"Severus," called Dumbledore, just before the door swung shut behind him. "Keep an eye out for Ronald Weasley. I have a feeling he might be looking to rejoin his friends."

Severus gave a grunt of aknowledgement and let the door fall closed. He'd worry about the Weasley boy if he had the time; his first priority was Harry.

*****CTU*****

Severus materialzed soundlessly in the Forest of Dean. The tree-shrouded night was pitch-black, but he dared not conjure a source of light just yet. That would come soon enough. By the meager and patchy glow of the moon and stars Severus glided soundlessly through the darkness until he reached the place he had been looking for. The frozen water was nearly invisible in the dark of the night, and icy cold to the touch even after Severus had melted through the layer of ice on top to the water below. Yes, this would do.

Stripping off his robes, Severus gritted his teeth and slid into the bitingly cold water of the forest pool, the ruby-hilted sword of Gryffindor firmly in his grip. He took a large breath and submerged himself completely, keeping his eyes open so as to place the weapon where it would be in full view of the next person who happened upon this particular clearing. When he was sure that the sword's postion was secure, he climbed once more out of the water, casting a quick charm to dry himself before donning his robes and turning back to face the pool. Several murmured spells and enchantments later, he slipped once more into the cover of the surrounding trees.

The first part of his task done, Severus walked quickly but silently back through the forest, alert for anything that would indicate that things were not as they should be. And he found it. They were well-cast spells, he gave the Granger girl that; even he might not have noticed them if he hadn't been looking for them. But looking for them he was. Still hidden a safe distance from the edge of the magical barrier, seperated from those it hid by several thick trees, Severus stopped, drew his wand, conjured two green-eyed, smiling faces in his mind's eye, and thought _Expecto Patronum!_

A brilliantly silver-white doe burst out of the end of his wand, blinding him for several seconds with the intensity of its glare. When his vision had cleared he directed the doe toward the clearing. The creature stepped lightly, making neither sound nor imprint upon the forest floor. Being made of thoughts and magic and therefore possessing no tangible form, the doe passed right through the barriers encircling Harry and his companion and came to a stop in front of the wide-eyed boy who had been keeping watch.

Severus's heart constricted, but he did not allow his patronus to waver. Harry was alright. He looked exhaused and careworn and distinctly the worse for wear, but he was alive and appeared to be uninjured. Physically at least.

Severus waited until he knew he had captured the full attention of Harry's burning curiosity, and then directed the shining doe back toward the trees from whence she had come, passing far enough from his hiding place that he would not be discovered. As he had known he would, Harry rose to his feet and followed, his feet moving more and more quickly as the doe glided ahead of him through the trees. Behind them both, Severus followed, his black eyes never leaving Harry, just as Harry's green ones never left the form of Severus's patronus.

Severus halted the doe's progress at the clearing where he had hidden the sword of Gryffindor earlier. Both the doe and Severus turned their heads to watch Harry walk the rest of the way into the clearing. He did not walk, however, but broke into a run, the look on his face one of yearning and desperation. The intensity in the emerald eyes startled Severus, causing a pang to go through his right to his core. His concentration wavered and his hold on the spell faltered and then broke. The silvery doe vanished as though she had never been, leaving Harry staring around him in disoriented confusion.

"_Lumos!"_ said Harry, and Severus could hear the fear creaping into his voice. His wand-tip ignited and Severus sunk farther back into the shadows, knowing he should leave now that his task was complete, but unable to bring himself to turn away while Harry stood there, looking so lost and alone, his pale, scared face illuminated eerily by the light of his wand.

Harry raised his wand, peering around him in the darkness. Did he sense Severus's presence? Did he know he was there? Or was he merely being cautious, suspicious of the magical force that had led him here to this clearing only to vanish as soon as he had arrived.

Harry turned his head, his eye apparently attracted by something to his left. It was the re-frozen pool of water, no longer dark with the reflection of the night, but a deep but clear greenish blue. Harry knelt next to the ice, angling his wand to see more clearly into the water's depths. His sharp intake of breath told Severus that he had seen what he had meant him to see; he knew the sword of Gryffindor was there.

Now Severus should leave. Harry had found the sword; he would have it soon and, according to Dumbledore, know what to do with it. But still Severus stayed, waiting, watching…

To justify his continued presence, Severus re-conjured his patronus and sent it out into the forest behind him, not bothering to follow its progress. If the Weasley boy was blundering about somewhere in here, hopefully he would see its light and follow it back to his friends. If not, well, at least Severus could tell Dumbledore he had tried.

Harry knelt by the edge of the pool for a long time, so long that Severus feared he had been frozen in place by shock. Then finally he rose, pointed his wand at the depths of the still water, and said softly _"Accio Sword."_

Severus almost rolled his eyes. A Summoning Charm? Surely the boy wasn't so daft as to think that would actually work. Even without the enchantments the Severus himself had placed over the pool and its contents, the sword would never let itself be simple summoned as though it were some common, every day object. Harry would have to work for it. To earn it.

Apparently Harry had also come to this conclusion, for now he was slowly and methodically stripping off his clothes until he stood barefoot in the gleaming snow, clad only in his underwear and a heavy golden locket, his breath ghosting in front of him as he shivered in the cold.

"_Diffindo,"_ he said, pointing his want at the frozen pool in front of him. The ice on top cracked loudly. A cruder spell than the one Severus had used, but no less effective under the circumstances. There was no one but Severus and a few nocturnal animals around to hear.

Harry jumped into the water so suddenly that it took Severus by surprise, his patronus, wherever it may be, flickering out of existence. He winced as the freezing liquid enveloped the boy, knowing from experience just how cold it would be. Severus held his breath as Harry submerged himself completely in the frigid water. Five seconds. Ten. Twenty… How long did it take to retrieve a bloody sword? Severus had just taken a step from his hiding place, ready to pull Harry and the sword both out of the stupid death trap he had set for him, when another figure appeared in the clearing, panting and clutching its side. It was Ron Weasley.

The redhead didn't hesitate, but threw himself, clothes and all, after Harry into the freezing water. Several chaotic seconds later, both boys emerged from the pool, coughing and spluttering, to collapse, panting on the snowy ground.

Severus turned away. He could no longer justify his continued presence. Every second he stayed in these woods was another second he risked being discovered, and Albus would be expecting his report. He allowed himself one brief glance over his shoulder and then disapparated, leaving the three teenagers to their task, whatever that might be.

**AN: It's late and I'm tired, have a headache, and have class at 8 am tomorrow. So. Hopefully people are still reading (and reviewing ;) ) this story. Until next time!**

**-SQ**


	15. Chapter 15: How Much You Care

**Author's Note: I am so, so sorry for how long this update has taken. I promise you, I wanted to do it sooner. But I have been so incredibly busy. Schoolwork and work work and other such things come first. And when I have just barely completed all of the work I need to do for classes and other academic/school-related commitments and it is six hours before I need to wake up, I just cannot work on fanfiction. Yes, perhaps I've slightly over-extended myself, but I manage. Unfortunately, I do not manage to update fanfiction at all as much as I would like. I hope you enjoy the chapter, despite the wait.**

**-SQ**

**Disclaimer: Nope. Still not Rowling.**

**Chapter Fifteen: How Much You Care**

Sitting on the floor or Malfoy Manor with Lucius Mafoy's scrutinizing face inches from his own, Harry wondered how he had possibly thought they would be able to get away with this. Perhaps it was, as Snape had said on many occasions, because he really did seem to get away with everything. But Snape was the last person he should be thinking about, trapped here in a Death Eater headquarters with some of Voldemort's top supporters seconds away from seeing through his flimsy disguise. (Some, but not all. Where was Voldemort's right hand man? Too important for this gathering? Harry was thankful for that, at least. He didn't know if he could handle coming face-to-face with Snape on top of everything else.)

"Draco, come here and look properly! What do you think?"

Draco's face joined his father's. He looked reluctant and afraid. Harry clearly saw the recognition in his former classmate's eyes, so he was surprised when Draco said, "I don't know."

Nor did Draco know if Hermione was Hermione or Ron was Ron. He didn't seem to be sure of anything. Not that Harry could blame him. "…_a boy who has been made to face things he is too young to face—much like someone else I know."_

_You don't know me_, thought Harry savagely.

"What is this? What's happened, Cissy?"

Harry felt another layer of fear add itself to the mess churning in his stomach as Bellatrix Lestrange entered his field of vision.

"But surely this is the Mudblood girl? This is Granger?"

_We're sunk_, thought Harry.

Bellatrix, Lucius, and Greyback began to fight over who was to receive the credit for capturing Harry, but it all seemed irrelevant to Harry and his friends' current situation. Voldemort was going to come, and Harry had found neither the Horcruxes nor the Hallows.

Then Bellatrix discovered Gryffindor's sword. Apparently this meant a great deal to her, carried some significance that the others did not understand, because she immediately took charge of the situation.

"The prisoners must be placed in the cellar, while I think what to do!"

Harry and Ron were roughly carted off toward the cellar, but, with a jolt of dread, Harry heard Bellatrix order Hermione to be left behind.

"HERMIONE!" Ron yelled as loudly as he could. ""HERMIONE!" He tried to break free of Greyback's hold, but the werewolf as too strong. "HERMIONE!" He continued to shout even after Greyback had thrown them in the cellar and locked the door.

Harry could have told him it was no use, if Ron would have been quiet for long enough to hear him.

"Be quiet! Shut up, Ron, we need to work out a way—We need a plan, stop yelling—we need to get these ropes off—"

Then a third and unexpected voice spoke. "Harry? Ron? Is that you?"

"_Luna?"_

It was Luna. And not just Luna, but Dean, Mr. Olivander , and Griphook the goblin too.

Trying to ignore Bellatrix's and Hermione's screams from the floor above, Harry and Ron exchanged stories with Luna, Dean, Olivander, and Griphook and the six of them tried, without much hope, to devise a plan to get them all free.

This had become a lot less hopeless when Dobby the house elf suddenly appeared in their midst.

Now, standing over the little elf's final resting place, the dirt from the freshly dug grave caked under his fingernails, Harry could no longer hold back the flood of painful memories.

*****CTU*****

"_SIRIUS!"_

_It was like watching a movie in slow motion._

"_SIRIUS!"_

_Sirius ducked the first jet of light from Bellatrix's wand, jeering at his cousin, taunting her. "You can do better than that!"_

_And apparently she could, because her next spell landed right in the middle of his chest._

"_SIRIUS!"_

_Sirius wasn't prepared for it. His eyes widened in shock and he stumbled backward._

"_SIRIUS!"_

_Toward stone archway behind him._

"_SIRIUS!"_

_And through the black veil that fluttered in a breeze that wasn't there._

"_SIRIUS!"_

_And did not reappear._

"SIRIUS!"

_And did not reappear._

"SIRIUS!"

"_There's nothing you can do, Harry—"_

"SIRIUS!"

"_It's too late, Harry—"_

"SIRIUS!"

"_There's nothing you can do, Harry…nothing… He's gone."_

_Even now, with the battle over and the first light of dawn making its way through Dumbledore's office windows Harry couldn't believe it. Sirius was gone. Dead. And it was his fault. He was foolhardy, stupid, reckless, prideful… all the things Snape had ever called him and a million more besides. Because of him an innocent man had died before his name could be cleared. He would never see his godfather again, and it was his all his fault._

_Harry felt as though his heart had been ripped out of his chest and replaced with a gaping hole. Surely no one could feel this much pain and stay alive. It was so awful, so completely unbearable, that he almost welcomes the interruption of Phineas Nigellus black from the wall behind him. As more portraits awoke, though, a terror of being interrogated seized him, and he ran to the door and attempted to pull it open._

_It was locked._

_Forced to remain in Dumbledore's office with only the portraits of former headmasters and his own, agonizing thoughts for company, Harry paced, trying vainly to escape the crushing guilt that made him feel as though he were trapped inside his own skin. Just when he was sure he could not stand another instant of it, the office door opened. Harry whirled around, expecting to see Dumbledore, but instead it was Snape who strode through the door and shut it behind him with a snap._

_Severus stood there for what seemed like a long time, staring at Harry as the boy stared back at him. Finally, in a voice heavier and wearier than he had heard Snape use before, even when ill with a high fever, the Potions Master waved his hand toward the empty chair in front of Dumbeldore's desk and said, "Sit, Harry."_

_Harry sat. It was automatic. But even as he did so, his mind was churning. Why was Snape here? What did he want with him? The Potions Master had barely spoken two consecutive words to Harry since he had stumbled upon the man's hidden memories in the Pensieve. The relationship they had built up over the past two years seemed to have been irreversibly shattered. Harry didn't think it was fair; Snape had been privy to all of _his _worst memories during their Occlumency lessons. But life, as Harry well knew, was rarely fair._

"_You should be pleased to hear that none of your fellow students will suffer lasting damage from tonight's events." Snape's voice was emotionless, but the accusation cut into Harry like a knife. Snape was reminding him of the damage his actions had caused, as if he needed reminding._

"_Madam Pomfrey is seeing to them now," continued Snape in the same, flat, almost bored sounding voice. He could have been commenting on the weather. "Nymphadora Tonks may need to spend a little time in St. Mungo's, but it seems she will make a full recovery."_

_Harry nodded mutely. He seemed to have left his voice back in the Ministry of Magic._

_The silence stretched between them, heavy with words unspoken, until Harry finally looked up. His teacher was staring at him with bottomless black eyes, and when he next spoke it was anything but emotionless. "I know how you feel."_

"_No you don't," Harry snapped, finding that his voice hadn't deserted him after all. Burning affront and rage swelled up inside him through the aching hole in his chest. How dare Snape try to talk to him as though he hadn't been ignoring him for the past months? How dare he pretend he knew what Harry was going through? How dare he be sympathetic when everyone knew how much he had hated Sirius?_

_Harry stood, roughly pushing his chair back from the desk. He suddenly found that he could no longer sit still. Memories threatened to overwhelm him. Sirius watching his Quidditch game in his animagus form as a large black dog, Sirius flying off on the back of Buckbeak the hippogriff, Sirius at Christmas, pent up and desperate to do _something_, being antagonized by the man currently sitting across the desk from Harry. The man who could be reading his every thought right now._

"_Harry—"_

"_Shut up."_

"_Do not speak to me that way, Mr. Potter," said Severus severely, though not without compassion. "Sit back down."_

"_No."_

"_Then at least turn around and look at me."_

"_Why should I?" said Harry, addressing the window._

"_Because I am trying to talk to you."_

"_Oh, sure, _now_, you want to talk to me."_

_Severus sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Yes, now I want to talk to you."_

"_Fine," said Harry, still not turning around. "Talk then."_

"_I know how you feel," Severus repeated after a lengthy pause._

"_LIKE HELL YOU DO!" Harry whirled around, grabbed the nearest silver instrument off the spindly table beside him, and hurled it at Snape's head in an unconscious imitation of Snape's reaction to finding Harry inside his memories. The instrument missed, sailing over the Potions Master's head and smashing against the wall behind him. Several of the portraits screamed, but Snape didn't even flinch. "I don't want to talk about it," growled Harry._

"_That much is obvious," said Severus coolly. "But eventually you will learn that what we want and what is best for us are not necessarily the same thing. Professor Dumbledore would tell you that your ability to feel what you do right now is 'the best of you'. Your greatest strength. A bit sentimental for my taste, but it is a part of being human."_

"_THEN—I—DON'T—WANT—TO—BE—HUMAN!" Harry shouted, kicking the table savagely, wishing he could kick Snape instead. Several of the instruments on it fell to the floor and shattered. "I DON'T CARE! I DON'T WANT ANOTHER ONE OF YOUR GODDAMN LECTURES! I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THEM! I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOU! I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF EVERYTHING! I WANT OUT!"_

"_Of course you do," said Severus simply. "I know that it feels like you can't go on anymore, but you can, and you will. Because you _do_ care. You care so much it is a physical pain inside of you, bleeding your life out drop by bright red drop. Only no one but you can see them. You care so much you feel as though your entire being has been shattered into a million pieces, like those silver scales there. You feel as if a giant hole has been ripped right out of your center and it's full of nothing; worse than nothing, because it will suck in anything that gets close to it and turn that into nothing too. Only you wonder how nothing can possibly hurt that badly. _That_ is how you feel, and that is how much you care."_

_Harry opened his mouth to scream at Snape, to tell him that he knew _nothing_ about how he felt, sitting there all smug in Dumbledore's chair. But the words died in his throat. Because Snape _did _know. Somehow, some way, he did know. That was exactly how Harry felt, and hearing it spoken aloud made it that much more real and present._

_Harry was suddenly overcome with the overwhelming desire to flee. To run and run until he couldn't run anymore, until he dropped from exhaustion and no longer even had the energy to remember seeing Snape's deep, black, penetrating eyes staring back at him from the other side of the desk. He turned on his heel and made a mad dash for the door, determined to get there before Snape stopped him. Snape didn't move. He didn't have to. The door was locked._

"_Now will you come sit down?" said Snape._

"_No." said Harry, but his voice had lost some of its fire. He felt exhausted. "Let me out."_

_Severus did not dignify this request with a response. Eventually Harry returned to the seat across the desk from him._

_Severus nodded once, in approval. "What you did tonight was foolhardy and rash," he said, leaning forward across the desk toward Harry. "You almost got yourself and all of your friends killed."_

_Harry said nothing. There was nothing to say._

"_Your actions were rash and ill-advised, but it is not your fault that Sirius Black died tonight."_

_Harry blinked. Whatever he had been expecting Snape to say, it hadn't been that._

"_Black was an adult and he made his own choices. More than one person bears the blame for what happened tonight, one of them being me. I never liked Black and he never liked me, but he was a member of the Order and important to you, and for those reasons among others I did not wish for him to die. He should not have died. He should not have been in any danger. None of you should have been in any danger, nor should you have thought for even a moment that Black was. And if our lessons had continued this term as they were supposed to, you wouldn't have. If they had continued, you would have known of the possibility, the likelihood, of the Dark Lord attempting to lure you to the Department of Mysteries, and you would have known how to resist such a lure._

_The portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black said something to Snape, but Harry was too busy processing what had been said to him to register it._

_Severus turned his attention back to Harry. "You know, because Professor Dumbledore has told you, that you and the Dark Lord are connected through the curse he cast in his attempt to kill you." _

_Harry nodded. _

"_You detect his presence, you feel his emotions, you sometimes even experience his actions. And as he has gotten stronger, so has the connection."_

_Harry nodded again._

"_You also know, because I told you, that this year the Dark Lord began to sense your presence within his thoughts."_

_Harry did not nod again, but he did know._

"_As soon as I learned of your dreams about the Department of Mysteries, I knew that you learning Occlumency was of even greater urgency than we had realized."_

"_But you stopped giving me lessons."_

"_You helped yourself to memories that were not yours to see."_

"_It was an accident! And you helped yourself to all of _my_ memories!"_

"_It was my job to teach you. To prepare you."_

"_Well you did a pretty rubbish job of it!"_

_There was a pause and then Snape said quietly, "I know. As soon as you told me what you had seen I went to verify for myself if it was true."_

"_So you _did_ understand!"_

"_Of course I understood. And when I contacted Grimmauld place I found your godfather there alive and well."_

"_But I—"_

"_Used the unreliable method of Floo Powder to talk to a house-elf who lied to you. Black was in the house."_

"_But—"_

"_Kreacher's allegiance was to another master, which with the way Black treated him, I cannot really blame him for. When Black told him to 'get out' over the Christmas holidays, Kreacher took the instruction literally and fled to Narcissa Malfoy."_

"_How do you know?" said Harry._

_Severus raised an eyebrow. "I am a spy. It is my job to know."_

_Harry's head was spinning. He felt like he might be sick._

"_When you did not return from the forest I immediately knew what you must have done. I alerted other members of the Order at once. I would have come myself, but my position as a spy prevented me." There was bitterness in his voice. "I told Black to stay behind and went myself to search the forest. But of course he did not listen to me."_

"_You taunted him—you called him a coward—"_

"_He has called me much worse. Not even Black would allow such things to impair his judgment further. He went because he was worried about you."_

"_What do you mean, impair his judgment further?" demanded Harry angrily._

"_My opinion of your godfather's judgment is no secret," said Snape. "If he hadn't been so careless—"_

"_OH, SO HE DESERVED TO DIE THEN, DID HE? !"_

"_That is not what I said," said Severus levelly._

"_But that's what you meant, wasn't it!?"_

"_No, It was not," said Snape. "As I have previously stated, I had no wish for Black to die."_

"_Really?" said Harry quietly. "Not even after what he did to you while you were at school?"_

"_Do you wish for your cousin to die? Or Draco Malfoy?"_

_Slowly, Harry shook his head._

"_My and Black's feelings toward each other are irrelevant," said Snape. "Our feelings toward you are markedly similar." He paused. "There is more for you to know, but you will not hear it from me. I came to see for myself that you were safe."_

_Harry looked across the desk at his professor. His chest and stomach still ached with that burning, hollow, emptiness, but somewhere in the back of his mind where the pain hadn't quite numbed all the way he registered that Snape was telling his that he still cared about him. And while that didn't make Sirius's death hurt any less, it did matter._

_Harry nodded. It was all he could manage, but it seemed to be enough. Snape rose from the chair, laid a hand briefly on Harry's shoulder, and exited the room. A silent minute passed, and then emerald flames suddenly flared to life in the cold fireplace and Albus Dumbledore stepped out into the room._

*****CTU*****

But Snape hadn't ever cared for him, had he? He had only pretended to, because he was a _spy_ and that was his _job._ Harry didn't even bother to dash away the tears on his cheeks. Parents, dead. Sirius, dead. Dumbledore, dead. Headwig, dead. Dobby, dead. And Snape…didn't even bear thinking about. Ron's parents were wonderful, but there were Ron's. Remus had his own son on the way. Very well, then; Harry would just have to be the adult in his own life. Maybe that's what all of these cryptic clues from Dumbledore were trying to tell him. He knelt by Dobby's grave, touching the stone marker with his fingertip, and then turned and walked toward the warm light shining from the windows of Shell Cottage.

**AN: As of my current plan, which I see no reason that I won't stick with, there will be three more chapters plus an epilogue. This has also, I believe, been the last flashback chapter.**

**Thank you for reading. Thank you doubly for reviewing.**

**-SQ**


	16. Chapter 16: The Battle of Hogwarts

**Author's Note: I am so sorry this chapter has taken so obscenely long to get up. Right when it was time to work on it I went on Thanksgiving Break, and I couldn't take the book with me because it would have gotten roughed about, and the copies I have at school I keep in perfect condition in their box. Then I got back and it was approaching Finals and I was on crew for a show and things were just kind of crazy. I finished editing this in the airport, & then I got home & it wasn't the time for fanfiction, so now I am finally uploading.**

**-SQ**

**Disclaimer: As I said, SnakeQueen, not J. K. Rowling**

**Chapter Sixteen: The Battle of Hogwarts**

Harry had mixed feelings about being back at Hogwarts. On the one hand, even with all of the stuff that was going on, it was the one place he had ever truly felt at home. on the other, so many of those happy memories were tainted by Snape's presence. A presence which still pervaded the castle, he was reminded, as his friends described the horrors that had been taking place in his, Ron, and Hermione's absence. At this point he honestly wasn't sure who he hated more, Snape or Voldemort.

And as if the thought had invited him into his head—which, Harry admitted, was entirely possible—Harry's scar gave an excruciating stab and the Room of Requirement became a cramped shack, rotting floorboards ripped apart to expose an empty golden box. Voldemort's enraged scream came from his own mouth.

Harry wrenched himself back into his own mind to find that he was only still on his feet due to Ron's supporting arm around his middle.

Neville was talking, asking him if he was alright, if he wanted to sit down. But Harry was barely paying attention. "We need to get going," he said, his gaze conveying his true meaning to Ron and Hermione clearly. Time was running out.

"What's the plan?"

Harry turned to look at Seamus, who had spoken, slightly taken aback. Plan? There was no plan. Didn't they understand that? All of his plans so far had gone horribly awry. All they had was a goal: get the Horcrux. Destroy it. Be one step closer to the impossible yet necessary task of killing Voldemort. Before he killed Harry. Neither can live while the other survives.

Obviously they did not understand, because his hurried half explanation was met with dismay and confusion. And when he tried to explain more, as best he could, why he had to do this alone—

Luna Lovegood.

Dean Thomas.

Fred and George Weasley.

Lee Jordan.

Cho Chang.

All there to fight Voldemort, Snape, and the Carrows for control of the school.

Should he trust them to help? How could he even ask that? They were his friends, some of them as close as family. But Snape had been as close as family and look where trusting him had led. But Dumbledore's attitude of secrets and lies hadn't gotten him anywhere either. Obviously he couldn't rely on either of them as models. Maybe that was the lesson all along; make his own decisions. Or maybe it wasn't at all, but he was going to do it anyway.

"There's something we need to find," he said, addressing the room at large. "Something—something that'll help us overthrow You-Know-Who…"

*****CTU*****

There was no turning back now, if there really ever had been. Part of Harry thought that maybe his entire life, or at least the entire past year, had been leading up to this point. And now Voldemort was hurtling at top speed directly toward Harry, Amycus and Alecto Carrow were trussed up on the floor of Ravenclaw Tower, and Professor McGonagall was making plans for the defense of the school to make time for Harry to search for Ravenclaw's lost diadem. Speaking of which…

"…something will have to be done about Professor Snape."

"Let me," said Harry savagely. He quickly explained to her to Room of Requirement and the passage into the Hogshead that could be used to evacuate all underage students and those who didn't want to fight. Then the two of them and Luna left Ravenclaw Tower, the two former students hidden once more beneath the Invisibility Cloak.

Suddenly Harry heard a fourth set of footsteps echoing mutedly in the deserted corridor. The three of them paused, peering around the dark space.

"Who's there," said Professor McGonagall sharply, raising her wand.

"It is I."

The sound of the smooth, low voice sent shivers up Harry's spine, and he felt like he was going to be sick. He took an involuntary step backward. As much time as he had spent thinking about the man in the past months, the last time he had actually seen Severus Snape in person had been the night he had murdered Dumbledore. A burning anger reared up inside of Harry, urging him to strike out, to hurt this evil, heartless man as much as he, Harry, had been hurt by him. To make some sort of genuine emotion, even one of hate or rage or, better yet, fear, appear in those cold, black, unfeeling eyes. But his feet were frozen in place, and his throat so constricted that he could make no sound.

Snape seemed to have no such problem.

"Where are the Carrows?"

"Wherever you told them to be, I expect, Severus," said Professor McGonagall with admirable nonchalance.

Snape took a step forward, his dark eyes glittering like black ice in the light of McGonagall's wand. His gaze swept right over Harry and Luna, as though he could sense their presence. Harry could swear that the air between him and his former professor was actually crackling; his chest was so tight that he could barely breathe. Somehow he managed to lift his wand; he would not let Snape hurt Professor McGonagall. Or anyone else if he could help it.

Snape took another step forward, his nostrils flaring unpleasantly. How could Harry have ever overlooked those greasy sheets of hair and that sallow, hooked nose? How could he have ever imagined that he saw kindness in those cold, black eyes?

_You're not the only one he tricked, _said a voice in his head. _Dumbledore believed him too. _It did not make him feel any better.

Snape spoke again and Harry, hyper aware of the man he currently hated most in the world standing mere feet from him, noticed an odd color to his tone that he couldn't quite place.

"I was under the impression that Alecto had apprehended and intruder." And still his fathomless eyes darted smoothly around the empty corridor, as though searching for something he knew was there and hidden from his sight.

"Really," said Professor McGonagall, the iciness of her tone matching the current Headmaster's eyes. "And what gave you that impression."

Without ceasing his searching, Snape flexed his left arm slightly.

Professor McGonagall's upper lip curled ever-so-slightly in the hint of a sneer. "Oh, but naturally. You Death Eaters have your own private means of communication, I forgot."

A blank mask still familiar to Harry even after all these months descended upon the former Potions Master's features. Snape had something to hide.

The two professors continued to talk, the tension palpable in the air around them as they attempted to maneuver each other into metaphorical corners. And all the while Snape drifted gradually, almost imperceptibly closer to where Harry and Luna stood, huddled and frozen in fear and white-hot hatred, under the Invisibility Cloak. In truth, Luna's presence was the only thing keeping Harry from throwing the Cloak off of him then and there and attacking the man who has ruined his life time and time again.

"Have you seen Harry, Minerva?" said Severus in a quiet, intense voice, holding the Gryffindor Head of House's gaze. "Because if you have, I must insist—"

And then suddenly the decision of whether to attack was taken out of Harry's hands; Professor McGonagall's arm moved so fast that Harry hadn't even realized she had cast the spell until Snape raised his own wand to block it.

Back and forth the two professors dueled, Harry unable to do anything but grab Luna and pull her out of the way to relative safety.

Then suddenly Professors Flitwick, Sprout, and Slughorn appeared, joining the fray without a second thought, driving Snape backward down the length of the corridor.

_No!_ Harry wanted to shout, wanted to run forward and protest to his former professors. _Let me do it! He betrayed me too! He hurt _me_! _Harry had used the Cruciatus Curse on Amycus Carrow when he had spit on McGonagall; he wouldn't hesitate to use it again on Snape. He would be _happy_ to.

"Coward!" came Professor McGonagall's voice suddenly. _"COWARD!"_

_He hates being called a coward._

"What's happened?" demanded Luna, for once actually sounded more than mildly interested.

The two of them lurched upright and ran the length of the corridor, around the corner, and into a classroom containing a large window. The glass had been smashed and Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout were all leaning carefully out of it into the chilly night.

"He's jumped," said Professor McGonagall bitterly by way of explanation.

"He's _dead_?" demanded Harry, so many emotions going through him at once that he couldn't have possibly separated and analyzed them all. He felt winded, faint, and dizzy, as though he had been punched in the gut. Dumbledore had fallen just like this almost exactly a year ago…when Snape had killed him.

"No, he's not dead," said Professor McGonagall in a voice that indicated that she very much wished she could say otherwise. As though she had read his mind, she continued, "Unlike Dumbledore, he was still carrying a wand…and he seems to have learned a few tricks from his master."

Harry looked through the smashed window just in time to see a large, batlike figure disappear over the perimeter wall into the distance. With a jolt of horror he realized that it must have been Snape.

Harry's attention was draw once more to the interior of the room and Slughorn arrived, panting and puffing, and added his voice to Flitwick's and Sprout's exclaiming Harry's name.

Harry ignored them. He had more pressing concerns. "Professor, we've got to the barricade the school, he's coming now!"

*****CTU*****

As the distant castle awoke with flashes of light and screams of panic, Severus strove to maintain his façade of unshattered calm as his thoughts churned in chaos. Harry was here, somewhere in the school, the very last place in the world he should have been, should have _wanted_ to be. And yet for some insane, idiotic reason the boy had returned to Hogwarts. Severus could only assume it was yet another act of brainless heroics. And what was worse, Alecto had seen him, had alerted the Dark Lord of his presence. And Severus himself had been driven from the school by people who were trying to protect Harry but didn't know how. If he were to make a list of worst-case scenarios, this would be very close to the top.

"Severus."

The sound of the cold, high voice sent chills up Severus's spine and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, but he let none of his revulsion show as he turned to face the figure beside him.

"Master."

"It has begun," said Lord Voldemort, his slitted red eyes glinting in the darkness. "Before the day is out, Harry Potter will be mine."

_No_, Severus wanted to say. _Not if I can help it._ But he couldn't. He couldn't even refute the Dark Lord's words in his mind, behind his countless mental barriers. Because if this was really it and everything went according to plan… Severus found himself hoping that he would be unable to tell Harry what he had been instructed to tell him, or that the boy would refuse to believe him. Who cared if Wizarding Britain went to hell, as long as Harry was safe? Severus was a selfish man, he fully acknowledged that. Unfortunately Harry was not. And if there was a way he could save everyone else he would do it, no matter what the cost.

"Indeed," said Severus instead, giving the smallest nod of his head.

"Return now to the castle," said Voldemort, steepling his long, pale fingers in front of him. "The students will be missing their headmaster." The cold, high laugh followed Severus out into the starry night.

*****CTU*****

"He's in the Shrieking Shack. The snake's with him, it's got some sort of magical protection around it. He's sent Lucius Malfoy to find Snape."

"Voldemort's in the Shrieking Shack? He's not—he's not even _fighting_?"

"He doesn't think he needs to fight," said Harry. "He thinks I'm going to go to him."

"But why?"

That was a very good question. Harry could think of several possible answers. Voldemort knew he was after the Horcruxes; he was keeping Nagini with him and heavily guarded. He also surely knew all about Harry's previous relationship with Snape. Perhaps he was hoping Harry would want to talk to the man, or simply to get revenge on him for betraying him. The second of those was certainly true (Harry wouldn't admit to himself that the first one was as well), but not enough to make him walk willingly into what was obviously a trap. How dense did Voldemort think he was? And yet, how else was he going to get to the snake? It was the last Horcrux; if he didn't destroy it the entire past year would have been for nothing.

Harry's argument with Ron and Hermione about whether or not he or any of them ought to go under the cloak to try and kill Nagini was cut short by the arrival of two Death Eaters bent on taking them out of action. At the very least.

What followed was an indeterminable amount of time of chaos and fighting, made all the more chaotic by the fact that Harry, Ron, and Hermione were covered by the Invisibility Cloak. Peeves flew over their heads, letting fall Snargaluff pods onto all of the Death Eaters; DA and Order members fired curses back and forth with Death Eaters; Neville and Professor Sprout had brought every dangerous plant they could carry from the greenhouses and were gleefully setting them on Voldemort's supporters; Professor Trelawney was attacking them with crystal balls.

Then a torrent of giant spiders flooded into the castle. The level of panic went up several notches, but the spiders seemed to have only one goal, and that accomplished they retreated the same way they had come, this time with Hagrid's bulky form hidden somewhere within their midst.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione pelted after them, no longer under the cloak, screaming Hagrid's name at the tops of their lungs as though it could do him any good.

*****CTU*****

Now Harry was starting to wonder how many deadly situations he could survive in a row before his luck finally ran out: Death Eaters, giant spiders, giants, dementors… And now they were heading straight for the most deadly situation of all.

Harry emerged into the Shrieking Shack, covered by the Invisibility Cloak. The room was lit only by the enchanted sphere surrounding Nagini. The eerie light illuminated long, white fingers wrapped loosely around a wand, which they tapped arhythmically against the table.

"…my Lord, their resistance is crumbling—"

Harry had to keep himself from making a sound that would give away his hiding spot. Snape was inches from him, close enough to reach out and touch.

"—and it is doing so without your help," Voldemort cut in. "Skilled wizard though you are, Severus, I do not think you will make much difference now. We are almost there…almost."

There was an undertone of urgency in Snape's voice that twisted Harry's stomach into knots. "Let me find the boy. Let me bring you Potter. I know I can find him, my Lord. Please."

Severus had a very bad feeling about having been called to his master's side at the pinnacle of the fighting. If he could just find Harry, get him to safety…

"I have a problem, Severus," said the Dark Lord, following Severus's progress across the small room with his red, slitted eyes.

The feeling of unease and danger in the pit of Severus's stomach rose a couple of notches. The Dark Lord never admitted to having a problem unless he had already found the solution.

"My Lord?"

Voldemort took his time in answering, lifting the long, thin wand in his fingers to eye level and examining it with careful scrutiny, as though vast secrets were stored within it.

"Why doesn't it work for me, Severus?" he said at last, without taking his eyes off of the Elder Wand.

Severus's befuddled reply gave no indication that he knew both the cause and the answer to his master's question. "My-my Lord? I do not understand. You—you have performed extraordinary magic with that wand."

"No," said the Dark Lord in his typical disdainful manner. "I have performed my usual magic. I am extraordinary."

Voldemort continued to muse over the power of the wand. In Severus's place a lesser man would have been sweating; the Dark Lord was perilously close to a conclusion that could cost him his life. But he remained cool and calm. From his hiding place behind the crate, Harry wondered what Snape was thinking behind that blank façade, whether his hidden face would have betrayed any thoughts or emotions, whether he knew what Voldemort was talking about. Harry certainly didn't. Though it was hard to think with pain building in his forehead with ever thoughtful step Voldemort took.

"I have thought long and hard, Severus… Do you know why I have called you back from the battle?"

_To kill me, I expect_, thought Severus, _not a wholly unwelcome idea to either of us, I think_. His eyes went to the figure of Nagini, suspended in the Dark Lord's magical protection. _I wonder what the chances are of me taking her out before I go?_

"No, my Lord, but I beg you will let me return. Let me find Potter." _Give me time to get him to safety. Then I can die._

"You sound like Lucius," said Voldemort, and Severus felt a pang in his chest for the man's son, yet another boy he had been unable to save from himself. "Neither of you understands Potter as I do."

_If only you knew_, thought Severus bitterly. _If only you knew._

"He does not need finding," continued Voldemort. "Potter will come to me. I know his weakness, you see, his one great flaw…"

_I know it too,_ thought Severus. _That is what I am afraid of. Although Dumbledore would have called it his greatest strength._

Severus continued to argue, but he knew that it was no use. Once the Dark Lord's mind was made up there was no changing it.

And now he was back on the subject of the wand.

"My wand of yew did everything of which I asked it, Severus, except to kill Harry Potter. Twice it failed. Ollivander told me under torture of the twin cores, told me to take another's wand. I did so, but Lucius's wand shattered upon meeting Potter's."

Behind his blank mask, Severus's mind was racing. Time was running out. For him, but more importantly for Harry. There were things the boy had to know, information he must impart. The possibility that the conclusion that the Dark Lord had evidently drawn was the wrong one would do Harry no good if he did not have the other parts of the puzzle. Because that was what Severus was banking on now, the only way he could live with himself for the small amount of time he had left.

"I sought a third wand, Severus. The Elder Wand, the Wand of Destiny, the Deathstick. I took it from its previous master. I took it from the grave of Albus Dumbledore."

_I know, you foul bastard_, thought Severus. _And yet it does not work for you. Even in Death Dumbledore is the greater wizard._ Not that the old man had been flawless, far from it. And Severus still had several very sore spots against his former, and partially continued, mentor; but whatever his faults, Albus Dumbledore had been worlds above the thing that now stood before him.

Snape turned and now Harry had a clear view of his face, and the image send chills down his spine. It looked as though it were carved of marble. Cold and white and lifeless, the jaw slack, the eyes empty. It did not look human.

"My Lord," Severus tried one last time, "let me go to the boy—"

But Voldemort continued talking, finally getting to the point he had been coming to the entire time. "The Elder Wand cannot serve me properly, Severus, because I am not its true master. The Elder Wand belongs to the wizard who killed its last owner. You killed Albus Dumbledore. While you live, Severus, the Elder Wand cannot truly be mine."

Severus's cry of protest was automatic, mechanical. He had no care for his own life, would be happy to see it end, if only he could ensure the safety of Harry's. And, if possible, Draco's as well. But at least Draco still had parents, albeit ones with a warped sense of values. Harry had no one but him. Briefly Severus considered calling the wand to him, seeing if his false master's conclusion was correct, if his true and previous mentor's plan hadn't gone awry after all, but before he had reached a decision, the man in front of him, if he could be called a man, was leveling his wand at Severus's chest.

"It cannot be any other way. I must master the wand, Severus. Master the wand, and I master Potter at last."

The Elder Wand whisked through the air. At first it seemed as though it had failed, and Severus dared to think that maybe Dumbledore's scheme had gone according to plan after all, for all the good it would do him, but then a movement at the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned and came face to face with the Dark Lord's monstrous snake. His composure broke at long last and he let out a yell, recoiling backward away from the serpent. But it was useless. Voldemort gave a short, ugly hiss and pain like Severus had never felt before ripped through his body as the snake's fang's pierced his neck, driving him to the floor. Not only his body was in agony, but his mind, his mental walls crumbling as every abused and tortured feeling, every repressed memory and hurt forgotten and unforgotten rushed to the forefront of his mind, washing over him in a tidal wave of pain and misery.

Voldemort did not seem to notice. Or perhaps he simply didn't care. He waited for the echoes of Severus's last scream to die away before using the Elder Wand to return Nagini and her cage to their previous position. He then strode out of the room, the suspended serpent floating after him, leaving the broken and bloody body of Severus Snape on the dusty floor.

Harry returned to his own mind as suddenly as he had left it, and found that he was biting so hard on his knuckles that drops of blood were falling onto his robes. Unaware of anything but what had just transpired in the room beyond, Harry pushed himself up over the crates and into the room, ignoring Ron and Hermione's frantic whispers behind him.

He did not know what he meant to accomplish, approaching the man who lay dying on the floor of the Shrieking Shack. No conscious thought went through his head, telling him to go to him, but somehow he found himself on his knees beside Snape's prone figure, the Invisibility Cloak sliding off of him to pool like a silvery mirror of Snape's blood on the wooden floorboards beside him.

Severus's eyes opened and the surprise he felt at the sight of Harry was evident. He opened his mouth to say the boy's name and coughed painfully instead, crimson blood staining his lips.

Harry's hand automatically went out to cradle his former professor's head.

"Doesn't…matter…" rasped Severus, every word a knife against his throat and chest, but one that was worth it, if he could just stay conscious long enough to tell Harry what he needed to know.

Harry stared down into the bottomless depths of those black eyes. He felt numb. No hate, no love, no joy or grief or pain or thirst for vengeance, just an overwhelming sense of emptiness.

Severus reached up and grabbed the front of his robes, pulling him closer. There was no time for gentleness, for sentimentality, even his had been a nature disposed to such things. "Harry…" he said, "listen…to…me…" Even as he said it he knew that there weren't words that could do what he had to say justice, even if there had been time to say them, and his time was running out. He coughed again. "No… Take…it…"

Harry was momentarily baffled, until he saw the silvery gaseous liquid-like substance of memory leaking from Snape's mouth, nose, ears, and eyes."

"How?" he managed to say, "How do I—?" But then Hermione was shoving a flask into his hands, which automatically lifted his wand to the memories still pouring sluggishly from Snape and caught them in the flask.

Severus's grip on Harry weakened. His skin was now as white as Voldemort's and his eyes were cloudy.

"Harry…" he said again, his voice no more than a rough whisper. "Look…at…me…"

Harry's emerald eyes once again looked into Snape's obsidian ones. There was a second of intense connection, of things neither of them could put into words, then the last spark of life faded from Snape's eyes and the hand clutching Harry's robes fell to the floor. Harry tightened his hand around the silver flask until he was in danger of breaking it, and still all he felt was gut-wrenchingly, bone-achingly empty.

**AN: Yes, I did it. There have been a lot of reviews begging me not to have Severus die, but I had always planned on having him die in this story. The reality is that, at this point, the change in their relationship has almost no impact on what is actually happening externally, because Severus still killed Dumbledore and Harry still thinks he betrayed them all. So Severus would still be in the position to be killed by Voldemort, as this story operates under the rule of changing as little as possible to fit the alterations, rather than the ripple effect where one small difference rewrites the entire series of events.**

**I thought this chapter was going to include Severus's memories, but obviously it doesn't, so I have 3 more chapters plus the epilogue planned.**

**Please and thank you for all your wonderful reviews :)**

**-SQ**


	17. Chapter 17: Harry

**Author's Note: Argh! This chapter took me a long time to write. It's long and dense, seeing as it contains (and is mostly made up of) Harry viewing Severus's memories. Most of the memories are exactly the same or very similar, so I skip or skim over large parts, assuming you know what's going on; m concern, as always, is with what Severus and Harry's relationship has changed.**

**-SQ**

**Disclaimer: Nothing's changed here**

**Chapter Seventeen: Harry**

Harry didn't know how long he knelt there with one hand clutching the vial containing Snape's memories, the other resting on the dead man's shoulder. Suddenly a cold, high chillingly familiar voice spoke directly into Harry's ear.

He jumped up, whirling around, his free hand scrabbling for his wand, but there was no one in the room apart from him, Ron, Hermione, and Snape's lifeless body.

Voldemort's disembodied voice continued to speak as though he were present, and it occurred to Harry that he must be speaking to all of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, that everyone in the immediate area must be hearing him as loudly and clearly as Harry was now.

"You have fought valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery."

Harry looked from the pale faces of his friends to the dark form of his former professor on the floor and wondered who decided what was brave and what was merely foolish.

"Yet you have sustained heavy losses," Voldemort's voice continued, sending shivers of revulsion up and down Harry's spine. "If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a loss and a waste.

"Lord Voldemort is merciful. I command my forces to retreat immediately."

_What's he playing at?_ Thought Harry. And then. _Merciful. A fat lot of mercy he showed Snape, his most faithful servant._

Voldemort continued, and this time he was speaking directly to Harry. The things he said made Harry's stomach churn and his vision, still filled with the sight of Snape's body, shift and blur. His hand felt sweat around the vial it held, and he felt hot and cold at once.

Ron and Hermione were speaking, but Harry, as though enclosed in a bubble, could not hear them clearly.

People were dead because of him…Sirius…Dumbledore…Moody…Fred…Snape…countless others whose names he would never know… So many people.

Harry found that his feet had taken him from the room to the entrance of the tunnel. He, Ron, and Hermione made their way back onto Hogwarts grounds in silence, the small crystal flask still clutched in Harry's sweaty hand. Half of him wanted to drop it, to forget it ever existed, to leave behind the last memories of the man who had caused him so much confusion and pain. But he maintained his grip and the flask stayed firmly within his hand.

The trio maintained their silence all the way up to the castle and into the Great Hall. Here the hush was all the more palpable for the low murmurs of the battered survivors.

Harry looked across the Hall as though in a dream. His gaze passed over the platform full of the injured, being treated by Madame Pomfrey, to the line of dead where the Weasleys mourned over Fred's still form. Ron and Hermione went to join them, but Harry remained apart, and as Ginny and Hermione moved closer to the others, two more bodies were revealed to Harry: Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks.

Harry took a staggering step backward, his lungs suddenly refusing to take in air. The castle felt as though it was pressing in upon him, an accusation for all the deaths he had caused. It felt as though he was on fire, burning from the inside out. It was a hundred, a thousand times worse than when Sirius had died. Then he had felt a sucking emptiness, a nothingness that had threatened to engulf him; now he felt as though every painful emotion and sensation had been jammed inside of him and they were now fighting their way out, ripping him to shreds but never giving him the relief of finishing him off. Just a never-ending pain.

Harry began to run. He did not know where he was running to or why, he just knew that he could not bear the torment of the scene in the Great Hall one moment longer.

Eventually he found himself in front of the stone gargoyle which guarded the headmaster's office, which he still thought of as Dumbldore's office. Perhaps that was the reason that, when the gargoyle demanded the password, he spoke the former headmaster's name without thinking. Much to his surprise, the gargoyle moved aside, allowing his to ascend the spiral staircase.

A sudden thought struck Harry. Perhaps he _could_ find Dumbledore in the office after all. He took off up the stairs, but when he reached the circular room it was to find not only Dumbledore's portrait, but every other portrait in the room deserted. He had been abandoned yet again.

Distantly Harry felt a cramp in his hand. He looked down and found the crystal vial containing Snape's memories still clutched in his fist. He crossed the room to the stone Pensieve and poured them in. Nothing, not even Snape's dying thoughts, could be worse than what was already inside his head.

Without even pausing to take a breath, Harry submerged himself fully in the silvery-white substance within the basin. And if it was...well, who was to say he didn't deserve it?

*****CTU*****

Harry tumbled through the memory-substance and landed in an ungraceful heap on the sand of a nearly deserted playground. Two young girls were on the swings, which were bathed in a soft sunlight. At the edge of the playground, out of sight of the two swinging girls, stood the owner of the memory.

Snape looked to be about nine years old. His black hair hung in his face. His clothes, too hung about his slim frame. His gaze was fixed almost hungrily on the girls on the swings.

Suddenly Harry's attention was caught by the voice of one of the swinging girls.

"Lily, don't do it!"

Harry turned his head in time to see the younger girl let go of the swing and literally fly through the air, landing lightly on her feet several yards in front of the swingset, her fiery head thrown back in laughter.

Harry looked at the grinning girl. This, obviously, was his mother. And if the younger girl was his mother, the elder one currently scolding her for her flying stunt must be…

"Tuney, look at this, watch what I can do!"

Harry watched as the two girls began to argue about Lily's use of magic. They had barely got going when Snape startled the Evans girls by stepping out from his hiding place and joining in the conversation.

This scene was followed by several others featuring the three children. It became obvious that Snape's home life as a child had been as bad as he had told Harry; that had not been a lie at least. The familiar pinched, peaky look, the unkempt appearance, and the occasionally revealed cut or bruise attested to the abuse and neglect that he suffered at home. In spite of himself Harry felt his heart go out to the boy who reminded him so much of himself. It was equally obvious that the closer Snape and Lily got, the less Petunia liked the boy, and she hadn't been fond of him to begin with.

Another thing that occurred to Harry as he watched the younger version of his mother and former professor interact was that Snape had been sweet on his mother. He wasn't quite sure how to react to that. Not that he hadn't had his suspicions on occasion that Snape's feelings for Lily had extended past the bounds of normal friendship, but speculating on your professor's former relationship with your mother was always weird so he hadn't devoted much of his time to it.

Harry continued to watch Snape's memories. The man had been vindictive even from an early age, but Harry couldn't find much sympathy for his aunt, the recipient of most of Snape's childhood spite. Though the fact that Petunia had been jealous of Lily's magic was news to him.

When Harry's father appeared in the memories Harry knew better than to expect it to be pleasant. Severus Snape and James Potter had hated each other. Apparently since the first day they had met on the Hogwarts Express. Their first confrontation reminded him uncomfortably of his own with Draco Malfoy.

As Lily and Severus grew older, however, their relationship began to become strained. Their conversations turned into arguments. But Harry knew this, or the gist of it. He had seen how these arguments had culminated.

Sure enough, the familiar scene appeared; James, Sirius, Lupin, and Peittigrew underneath the beech tree, Severus turned upside down in the air, Lily's appearance, Snape calling her a Mudblood… Harry turned away; he did not need to witness it a second time.

The next scene he had not previously experienced. Severus was apologizing to Lily, trying to get her to be friends with him again. Harry was torn. His heart again ached for the young man that Snape had been, but he knew from experience the danger of trusting Snapes words, believing in his lies. But what Harry thought did not matter; Lily refused to forgive the boy who had once been her best friend.

Next Harry was privy to a scene which he realized had shaped his life in a way he had only vaguely been aware of before now. Snape was pleading to Dumbledore to protect Lily after realizing that his master took the prophesy to mean her son. It was at that moment, watching Snape literally on his knees begging for Dumbledore to help him save Lily Potter's life that Harry realized just how much his mother had meant to his professor. Snape hadn't just been sweet on Lily Evans; he had loved her. The realization was a bit staggering for Harry, but it also made a lot of things make sense; Snape's initial hatred of Harry, his grudging, protection of him, the walls the man had obviously built up around his heart… Funny, Harry didn't doubt for a moment that Snape's feelings for his mother had been genuine. He didn't know why, surely Snape would have been capable of modifying his memories in a much more successful way than Horace Slughorn, but somehow Harry just knew that what he was seeing was the truth.

The scene changed again. Snape sat this time instead of kneeling, his head bent to his chest. It took several moments for Harry to realize that the keening, animalistic sound filling the room was coming from the broken-looking man slumped before him. Snape lifted his head and it seemed to Harry that all of the pain and misery that had always been hidden behind the man's inscrutable dark eyes was written across his features plainly.

"I thought…you were going…to keep her…safe…"

"She and James put their faith in the wrong person," said Dumbledore, his grim expression not changing. "Rather like you, Severus."

Dumbledore continued. It seemed rather like he was intentionally trying to provoke Snape. "Her son lives. He has her eyes, precisely her eyes. You remember the shape and colour of Lily Evans's eyes, I am sure?"

"DON'T!" shouted Snape, in a voice of such raw emotion that Harry knew Snape's understanding of his own feelings at Sirius's death had not been a lie. "Gone…dead…"

"Is this remorse, Severus?"

_No shit_, thought Harry.

"I wish…I wish _I_ were dead…"

Harry felt an unexpected pang at the words; sixteen-and-a-half years later, Snape had finally gotten his wish.

"And what use would that be to anyone?" Dumbledore's voice was cold and pitiless, but Harry thought he detected a hint of sympathy in the headmaster's blue eyes. "If you loved Lily Evans, if you truly loved her, then your way forward is clear."

Harry listened with dawning comprehension as his future/past relationship with Snape was sealed. Snape had vowed to protect him, vowed to protect him in memory of his mother and on the condition that no one, especially himself, was to know. This was the reason Dumbledore had been so sure of Snape's loyalty. And the reason he had never told anyone else, despite their constant doubts and demands.

_But why didn't you tell me?_ Harry wondered of his deceased Potions Master and mentor. _When things changed between us, why didn't _you _tell me?_

There were more conversations between Snape and Dumbledore, all of them about Harry, most all of them Severus complaining about Harry. But the nature of the complaining subtly changed from a genuine dislike to a grudging and exasperated concern.

Honestly, Harry was having a difficult time coming to terms with the fact that the broken boy, the embittered traitor, and his stern and silent teacher were the same person.

Harry turned his attention back to the scene in front of him; maybe if he watched through to the end of whatever it was Snape wanted him to see, things would make more sense. If anything could anymore. He and Snape were back in Dumbledore's office. The headmaster was sagging, semiconscious, in his chair, his head lolling to the side and his right hand, which was charred black, hanging over the arm of the chair. Snape was muttering furiously, his wand pointed at Dumbledore's injured hand. His other hand held a goblet full of golden potion which he was currently holding to the barely conscious headmaster's lips. Whatever it was it seemed to work, because a few moments later Dumbledore's bright blue eyes opened.

Snape began talking nearly in the same instant. "Why, _why_ did you put on that ring? It carries a curse, surely you realized that. Why even touch it?"

For the first time Harry noticed the sword of Gryffindor and Marvolo Gaunt's ring, a crack running down the center of the metal lying on the desk.

Dumbledore grimaced and shook his head slightly, trying to clear it.

"I…was a fool. Sorely tempted…"

_Tempted by what?_ wondered Harry.

"Tempted by what?" demanded Snape.

But Dumbledore gave no answer and Snape continued to berate him for his lack of common sense. Harry knew from experience that the man saved this kind of tirade for when someone he cared about had narrowly escaped some sort of grave danger.

Dumbledore let Snape go on for a while, and then raised his hand, cutting the younger man off mid-sentence. The headmaster examined his hand—the blackened one—for several moments with an air of curiosity. "You have done very well, Severus. How long do you think I have?"

Harry jolted, unsure for a moment if he had heard Dumbledore correctly. But as the conversation progressed, it became clear that in putting on the ring Dumbledore had sealed his own death warrant.

Snape seemed much more agitated by this news than Dumbledore. It appeared that he did not know about the Horcruxes, and that Dumbledore had no immediate plans of enlightening him. It also occurred to Harry that Dumbledore had indeed given his life for the destruction of one of the Horcruxes, it was simply a different one than he, Harry, had first believed.

"Well, really, this makes matters much more straightforward."

Harry and Snape looked at him with nearly identical expressions of confusion and incredulity.

Infuriatingly, Dumbledore smiled. "I refer to the plan Lord Voldemort is revolving around me. His plan to have the poor Malfoy boy murder me."

Wait a second, Dumbledore had known? All that time Dumbledore had known what Malfoy was up to? So Snape really _had _been acting on his orders when he had offered to help Malfoy.

This realization was confirmed by the following exchange. Draco was supposed to try to kill Dumbledore and fail. When he did, the task was to fall to Snape. Dumbledore had known. All along Dumbledore had known, he had sat there, talking to his future murderer, _knowing_—

"_You_ must kill me."

The silence in the room was absolute.

"Would you like me to do it now?" said Snape finally, masking his discomfiture with heavy irony. "Or would you like a few moments to compose an epitaph?"

"Oh not quite yet," said Dumbledore, whose eyes were actually twinkling. "I daresay the moment will present itself in due course."

Harry's mind was reeling. Snape had killed Dumbledore _because Dumbledore had asked him to_. The whole thing had been planned. The headmaster had been dying due to his own mistake and had asked Severus to end it rather than allow Draco to or wait for the inevitable.

Harry's mind went back to those last awful moments atop the astronomy tower and the fight and flight following it.

"_Severus…please…"_

"_A good servant always follows his master's orders."_

"_What do _you_ think is true?"_

Dumbledore had been asking Snape to kill him. Snape had been acting on Dumbledore's orders. But…but if he had, why run? Why stand by—no, not stand by, _help_ as Voldemort took over Wizarding Britain? Why abandon the Order? _Why abandon me?_

Harry blinked, his vision suddenly blurring, and when he opened his eyes the scene had changed again.

"What are you doing with Potter, all these evening you are closeted together?" Snape's voice had a sharp edge to it.

"Why?" asked Dumbledore mildly, a faint twinkle in his eyes. "Are you trying to give him _more _detentions, Severus? The boy will soon have spent more time in detention than out."

Severus leveled his gaze at the headmaster. "You know very well that that is not the case, Albus. I happen to have a vested interest in Potter's doings."

"Certainly you trust me with him, Severus," said Dumbledore in the same mild tone.

"Of course," said Severus in a tone that rather suggested otherwise. "Potter on the other hand…"

"I spend time with Harry because I have things to discuss with him," said Dumbledore firmly, "information I must give him before it is too later."

"I see you have no problems trusting him," said Snape. "As you do not trust me." And Harry could tell that he was hurt.

"It is not a question of trust," said Dumbledore, and there was an air of finality to his words. "I have, as we both know, limited time. It is essential that I give the boy enough information for him to do what he needs to do."

Severus's eyes narrowed; obviously this did not sit well with him. "And why may I not have the same information?"

"I prefer not to put all of my secrets in one basket, particularly not a basket that spends so much time dangling on the arm of Lord Voldemort."

Snape's black eyes flashed. "Which I do on your orders!"

Dumbledore's voice became graver. "And you do it extremely well. Do not think that I underestimate the constant danger in which you place yourself, Severus." Harry was hanging onto his former Headmaster's and Potions Master's every word. "To give Voldemort what appears to be valuable information while withholding the essentials is a job I would entrust to nobody but you."

"And yet you place the most secret and important part of your plans on the shoulders of a teenage boy who has endured more than any boy his age should have to, is trying to navigate his own life amidst others attempting to use and control him, is barely capable of Occlumency, and who has a direct connection into the Dark Lord's mind!"

"Voldemort fears that connection," said Dumbledore quietly. "Not so long ago he had one small taste of what truly sharing Harry's mind means to him. It was such pain such as he has never experienced—"

"And what of the pain Harry experienced?" Severus demanded, and Harry found to his surprise that he was touched.

"I am not insensitive to it, whatever you may think, Severus," said Dumbledore. "But Voldemort will not try to possess Harry again, I am sure of it. Not in that way."

"How can you be so sure?" demanded Snape.

"Lord Voldemort's soul, maimed as it is, cannot bear close contact with a soul like Harry's. No matter how much pain it causes Harry, it causes Voldemort infinitely more. Like a tongue on frozen steel, like flesh in flame—"

"Souls?" Severus burst out impatiently. "We were talking of minds!"

Harry rather agreed with this assessment.

"In the case of Harry and Lord Voldemort, to speak of one is to speak of the other."

The discussion turned to Snape's imminent killing of Dumbledore. The topic was obviously displeasing to Snape, to put it mildly. Dumbledore, however, did not seem too concerned by Snape's threat of changing his mind.

"You gave me your word, Severus. And while we are talking about services you owe me, I thought you agreed to keep a close eye on our young Slytherin friend…?"

*****CTU*****

"Harry must not know, not until the last moment, not until it is necessary, otherwise how could he have the strength to do what must be done?"

They were once again in Dumbledore's office. Snape sat rigidly while Dumbledore paced, something Harry had never seen the former headmaster do before.

_What do I have to do?_ thought Harry. _Because I think this prett much qualifies as the "last moment" and then some._

"That is between Harry and me," said Dumbledore in response to Snape's similar question.

_No it isn't! _Harry wanted to shout. _Not if I don't know about it!_

But Snape wouldn't let it go, even going so far as to not question why Voldemort would fear for Nagini's life to focus on the main question.

"Tell him _what_, Albus?"

Dumbledore took a breath and seemed to come to a decision.

"Tell him, Severus, that on the night Lord Voldemort tried to kill him, when Lily cast her own life between them as a shield, the Killing Curse rebounded upon Lord Voldemort, and a fragment of Voldemort's soul was blasted apart from the whole, and latched itself onto the only living soul left in that collapsing building. Part of Lord Voldemort lives inside Harry, and it is that which give him the power of speech with snakes, and a connection with Lord Voldemort's mind that he has never understood. And while that fragment of soul, unmissed by Voldemort, remains attached to and protected by Harry, Lord Voldemort cannot die."

This time Harry actually spoke aloud, for all the good it did him. "Excuse me? A piece of Voldemort's _soul _is _inside _me?" The idea made him want to gag. Then another thought struck him, even more horrifying. "Does…does that mean I'm a _Horcrux_?"

Snape, too, looked as though he might be sick. "You are saying…that Harry…has to die?" There was something akin to panic, or desperation, in his eyes.

Dumbledore nodded solemnly. "Yes, Severus, and Voldemort must do it. That is essential."

The silence stretched into infinity between the two men. Severus's face was a stone mask, but it was stone being made to withstand so much pressure that any moment it would surely crack. Finally he spoke, his voice a brittle whisper. "We were…all these years…we were _protecting_ him! You made me _promise_!"

"Yes," said Dumbledore. "I did. We have protected him because it has been essential to teach him, to raise him, to let him try his strength. And it was essential that we be the ones to teach him. But meanwhile the connection has grown ever stronger, a parasitic growth; once Lord Voldemort returned your apparent allegiance to him could only shield the boy for so long. Sometimes I have thought he suspect it himself. I know you have, although you do not have the full extent of the information that I have been imparting to him during our sessions. A fact, by the way, that can in part be attributed to your teaching him Occlumency, as dissatisfied as you have been with his progress. But I digress. If I know him, he will have arranged matters so that when he does set out to meet his death, it will truly be the end of Voldemort."

The stony façade had fallen from Snape's features during Dumbledore's little speech. He now looked stricken, as though…as though someone had just informed him of the death of his son.

"That may be the reason _you_ have protected him," Snape spat out, his trembling lips barely able to form the words. "But it sure as hell isn't the reason _I _have! I have not—what I have given—it was not so that he could die when you decided it was time!"

"It is not my decision, Severus," said Dumbledore. "Fate, chance, destiny, call it what you will, it is the truth."

"_Fuck you,"_ spat Snape savagely.

"Why are you so shocked, Severus? How many men and women have you watched die? What is one more?"

"Lately only those whom I could not save," said Snape, his voice raw with grief. "And Harry is not just _one more_, nor is he a man. He is a boy!"

"That is where you are wrong, Severus," said Dumbledore. "Your teachings will soon have finished what circumstance started. Harry Potter is no longer a child."

"You have used him. And me."

"Meaning?"

"Harry has looked up to you, trusted you, when he had no one—"

"He did not have no one," cut in Dumbledore. "He had you."

Severus let out a snarl of rage. "I have spied for you and lied for you and put myself in mortal danger for you. I took Potter under my tutelage when I would have sooner spat on him as looked at him. I reopened old wounds so he would trust me, so that I could better keep him safe! And now you tell me it has all been a lie! I have been helping you raise him like a pig for slaughter—"

"You have to know, Severus, that even I could not have predicted the set of circumstances that arose from your involvement with Lily's child. I certainly never imagined that you would actually grow to care for the boy."

"Is that supposed to mean something?" hissed Snape. "To somehow make this better? You have made me betray him! Just as I betrayed her! _Expecto Patronum!_"

And from the tip of Snape's wand galloped forth a shape made of silver mist. It landed on the floor of the office and for the half second that it stood frozen there Harry recognized it as the silver doe from the forest. Then Snape's Patronus gathered its ephemeral legs together and leapt across the room and out of the window, disappearing into the inky night.

Dumbeldore watched it go and then turned slowly back to Snape, his eyes glistening with tears. "After all this time?" he asked.

"Always," said Snape, the pain in his voice for once unmasked.

"And the boy?"

"_Harry,"_ said Snape. "His name is Harry."

*****CTU*****

The Harry in question was still reeling from this wealth of information, so it took him several moments to realize that the scene had shifted again. Even as he watched Snape converse in terse, clipped tones with a now obviously deceased Dumbledore's portrait, his mind was still processing the extent of what Snape had done for him, the extent of the man's feelings for him, and the true nature of his connection with Voldemort. He barely heard Dumbledore order Snape to give Voldemort the correct date of Harry's departure from the Dursley's so as to maintain his appearance as loyal Death Eater, barely saw Snape suggest the idea of decoy Harry's to Mundungus, barely registered the fact that the spell that had severed George's ear had been meant for a Death Eater attempting to kill Lupin…

He did, however, come slightly more to his senses when he and Snape appeared in Sirus's bedroom. Snape was bent over the old letter in Lily's neat handwriting, and he was crying. When he finished reading it he took the page that bore Lily's gently curling signature, the page that had been missing when Harry, Ron, and Hermione had found it later, and pocketed it.

The final memory that Snape had given him consisted of Phineas Nigellus informing the two headmasters, current and former, living person and enchanted portrait, of Harry's location in the Forest of Dean and Snape's subsequent departure with the Sword of Gryffindor. Then Harry was ejected smoothly from the Penseive and found himself once more in Dumbledore's office, this time in the present day, with no Dumbledore, no Snape, and the knowledge of what he had to do lying like a deadweight on his mind.

**AN: Yeah…I've made it so much worse, haven't I? Oops… Ideally of course all of that would be worked into and around the original text, but typing up mass amounts of original text is general frowned upon here, so I'll leave it to your brains to insert it where it belongs. Know that Harry in this story did indeed see the rest of the memories in the same detail that he saw them in the original book.**

**As always, reviews are encouraged!**

**-SQ**


	18. Chapter 18: I Open At The Close

**Author's Note: I am so sorry it has taken this long. Life has a way of sucking up my time. I can't promise anything other than continuing the story at whatever pace I manage to get chapters up, but there should only be 2 more chapters plus an epilogue. I hope you enjoy the chapter.**

**-SQ**

**Disclaimer: Duh**

**Chapter Eighteen: I Open At The Close**

Harry's mind felt clearer than it had in ages. Everything had finally fallen into place. Snape had been loyal all along. Loyal to Dumbledore, loyal to the Order. Loyal to him.

Yes, Snape had betrayed him, but not in the way Harry had thought. Snape had played his part as spy to perfection, but he had loved Harry.

And it didn't matter. Because Harry was still going to die.

This had been the plan all along, for Harry to destroy Voldemort's Horcruxes, eliminating the Dark Lord's links to life one by one until he reached the last one: himself. That was what the prophecy had meant, not that he could only survive by killing Voldemort, but that he would die in doing so.

Harry knew what he had to do, and yet he could not bring himself to move. There, with his cheek pressed against the scratchy rug of an office that now belonged to no one, his heart hammering loudly throughout his entire being, Harry felt the terror engulf him. Wave after wave of paralyzing fear. What was it like to die? So many people he had known and cared for had died, he had narrowly escaped it himself more times than he could count, but never had he once stopped to think about it. What did it feel like? Did it hurt? What came after? The questions and the fear nearly suffocated him, but there was no thought in his mind of trying to escape his fate. His entire life had been leading up to this moment; now all he could hope to do was to take Voldemort down with him.

He thought back to the many deaths strewn about over the course of his lifetime. His parents, who had died to save him, Cedric and Hedwig who had not known what was coming, Sirius, Moody, Fred, Remus, and Tonks, all killed in the heat of battle, fighting for what they believed in. Good old Dobby, dead after his final good deed. Wormtail, a victim of his own remorse. Dumbledore, a death planned and calculated by himself, a master planner to the last. Snape, misunderstood, hated and alone, but finally free of the deception and pain in which he had lived his life. Harry would have welcomed any of their deaths. Anything in place of what he now had to do; walk blindly and helplessly toward the end of his life.

Somehow Harry forced himself to his knees and then to his feet. He was hyper aware of his own body; the breath pumping through his lungs, the blood flowing through his veins, the cold sweat beading on his palms and forehead. Everything that he had taken for granted until now and which would now soon be gone. He swallowed and felt the thin trickle of saliva slide down his dry throat. He did not cry. He did not mourn his own life or the trust he had placed in Dumbledore, nor that which he had not placed in Snape.

This was the end. Just as Dumbledore had planned it. It did not even come as a surprise to Harry, not really. It had been foolish of him, naïve, to think that all of this had somehow revolved around him, that he was above it all, that his life was in any way important. It was not his life that was important, but his death. Dumbledore, and Snape with him, had kept him alive so that his death could have the optimum effect. And naturally, naturally it had been Harry who had worked to bring this moment about, the moment of his own death. It was oh so neat, oh so very efficient. As little mess as possible, as few people involved, as few lives risked along the way. Because what did it matter if Harry's life was risked, when he was to die anyway?

Dumbledore had known that Harry would go through with it, even once he knew the truth. That was why he had ordered Snape to tell him. Because Harry's death would not be a tragedy, not a loss, but a victory. The final blow against the Dark Lord. Harry could not, now that he knew the truth, allow one more person to die for him when he had the ability to stop it. Dumbledore had known this, of course he had, he had had years to get to know Harry, to figure out how his mind worked, and his heart. So had Voldemort. And so had Snape. Snape most of all, whom Harry had trusted, loved even, Snape had been used as much as Harry had.

But Harry had failed, and even now the knowledge that he had disappointed Dumbledore stung. The headmaster had overestimated him, expected him to destroy all of the horcruxes before going to his own death, but he had not; Nagini still lived. Harry's death would bring the Dark Lord one step closer to death, but it would not kill him. That job would be left to somebody else. Someone else would get the glory of defeating Lord Voldemort. Well, Harry didn't mind that part. He had had enough glory for one lifetime. Perhaps Hermione would do it. Or Ron. But Dumbledore had foreseen even this; that was why he had had Harry confide in them, so that they would be able to finish it if Harry was not. Harry hoped it was Ron who got to do it; he deserved to get something out of all of this.

There could be no goodbyes, no explanations. For this was something that Harry had no words to explain. It was a journey he must undertake alone, and he did not have the time or the energy to try to convince them of that. He looked down at the watch on his wrist, a present for the last birthday he would ever have. Thirty-five minutes left to save Hogwarts. Thirty-five minutes left to live.

The corridors were deserted, silent. Even the portraits were empty and the only ghost in sight was Harry himself, although technically he wasn't in sight, as he had pulled the Invisibility Cloak over himself soon after leaving Dumbledore's office. Funny how he still thought of it as Dumbledore's, when it had been Snape's for nearly a year now.

The castle itself felt as dead as the bodies Harry tried not to see as he passed the Great Hall on his way toward the front doors.

Harry looked up and found his way blocked by Neville and Oliver Wood. They were carrying something between them. As Harry stepped to the side so that they didn't collide with him he saw what it was and felt slightly sick. Somehow Colin Creevey had managed to sneak back onto the grounds to fight, and had paid the ultimate price.

Oliver took Colin, who looked even smaller in death, and Neville leaned against the doorframe as though his legs could no longer support his weight. When he straightened again and left the castle once more Harry followed him, glad to be away from the stifling atmosphere of the Great Hall and the unseen presence of the people he loved and would never see again. What he wouldn't have given for one last look…But there was no time for that now, no room for weakness, only resolve.

Harry followed Neville down the stone steps and toward more where bodies lay scattered across the grass. So much death, so much devastation. Soon it would be over. Very soon now it would end. But he wouldn't be there to see it through, so he had to make sure.

"Neville."

Neville started violently and looked about him. Harry pulled off the cloak.

"Blimey, Harry, you nearly gave me heart failure! Where are you going, alone?"

"It's all a part of the plan," said Harry, which was true enough, though only he among the living knew what that plan truly was.

But Neville was smarter than Harry had given him credit for. "Harry, you're not thinking of handing yourself over, are you?"

"No," said Harry, because there was nothing else he could say that Neville would accept, and he had to get to the point, quickly. "You know Voldemort's got a snake, Neville? He's got a huge snake… Calls it Nagini…" and Harry went on to explain to Neville that the snake had to be killed, to impress upon him the vital importance of the snake's demise. That done he pulled the cloak back over himself and continued onward. Thankfully Neville let him go; he didn't know if he would have had the strength to otherwise.

But talking to Neville was nothing compared to seeing Ginny. She was helping another girl, injured, distraught, into the castle, and Harry found himself wishing that it was him Ginny's arms were wrapped around, him being told it was okay not to fight anymore, although soon he woulnd no longer be fighting, either way. _Stop me_, he thought silently to the girl he loved. _Take me back, send me home_. But she could not see him, and he did not have a home to be sent back to. Hogwarts was his home. Like Snape, like Voldemort; three lost souls who had found refuge within the castle's stone walls.

As Harry walked across the Hogwarts grounds, ghostly images from his past rose up before his eyes; the many Quidditch games, visiting Hagrid's hut, Ron vomiting slugs, going back in time and conjuring the patronus that had saved him and Sirius from the dementors…

There were dementors here now too, just beyond the trees. Harry knew he did not have enough happy thoughts left to fight them off. Fifteen minutes to live now. Fifteen precious minutes. To think, some people had so much time they didn't know what to do with it, wasted it, wished it would go by faster, and here he was, counting the minutes, clinging to each second he had left to live. The Seeker had finally found what he sought, but it was not quite how he had imagined it.

The Seeker. The Snitch.

Feeling as though the bones had been removed from them again, as they had that afternoon more than five year ago, Harry's fingers fumbled at his collar and withdrew the pouch that hung there.

_I open at the close._

Harry's breath came so fast it was like knives being driven into his chest, each breath bringing him closer to the inevitable end. There was no time for thought now, only understanding.

_I open at the close._

Fingers trembling, Harry withdrew the small golden ball from the pouch around his neck and pressed it against his lips. The metal felt cold.

_I open at the close._

"I am about to die."

The Snitch opened.

"_Lumos."_

In the small but steady light from Draco's wand Harry could see the cracked, black stone sitting inside the golden metal. Again he did not have to think. It didn't matter if he brought them back now, because in ten minutes they would return to wherever he had brought them back from, and he, Harry, would go with them.

Closing his hand around the Snitch and the stone inside in, he turned them over three times.

It was several seconds before Harry looked up, but he already knew what he would see. He had known the moment they had appeared, had sensed them in the shifting of the air around him, known he was no longer alone.

They were not ghosts, but neither were they wholly solid. They were something in between, like the living memory of Tom Riddle that had come out of his diary, was it really only five years ago?

The figures stepped toward him, their eyes shining with love and understanding Harry had either never gotten to experience or not fully appreciated when they had been alive.

James was precisely Harry's height. His hair was as untidy as it had been in Snape's memories, and his lopsided glasses gave him a slightly Mr. Weasley-esque air. Harry recognized the clothes he was wearing as the ones he had died in.

Behind him stood Sirius, a grin on his handsome face. He looked much more like he had in Lily and James' wedding photo than he had when Harry had known him

Remus, too, was younger and less shabby looking, a smile on his lightly scarred face.

Lily was the first to step toward him, the smile never leaving her face as she took him in, as though trying to absorb seventeen years of his life in one moment.

But it was the fifth figure that drew Harry's gaze.

Severus inclined his dark head slightly. Of the five adults standing in front of Harry, only he appeared the age he would have been in life. Seeing him standing there, his obsidian eyes more open than Harry had ever seen then, it was hard to believe he had seen the man die only an hour before.

Lily spoke, and Harry's attention snapped back onto her. "You've been so brave."

Harry felt as though someone had cast a Silencing Charm on him. There were so many things he had wished he could say to these people who had had such an impact on his life, and now that they were all standing here in front of him, words seemed to have deserted him.

"You are nearly there," said James. "Very close. We are…so proud of you."

Harry finally found his voice, but was ashamed of the question as soon as it left his lips. "Does it hurt?"

"Dying?" said Sirius as though it was the most natural thing in the word. Which, if you thought about it, it was. "Not at all. Quicker and easier than falling asleep."

Harry knew very well that this was not the case for everyone, had not been the case for Snape, bled out and poisoned by Voldemort's giant snake. He could only hope that Voldemort would choose a less messy way to dispose of him.

Remus seemed to read his mind. "He will want it to be quick. He wants it over."

Harry spoke now without conscious thought; it was as though the floodgates had opened the words came tumbling out of their own volition. "I didn't want you to die. Any of you. I'm sorry, so sorry—" He looked beseechingly at Remus, though whether he was begging for forgiveness of condemnation he was not sure. "And right after you'd had your son…Remus, I'm sorry—"

"I am sorry too," said Remus, and there was no accusation in his voice. "Sorry that I will never know him…but he will know why I died and I hope he will understand. I was trying to make a world in which he could live a happier life."

Harry nodded; there didn't seem to be anything more to say. His gaze drifted once more to Snape, half-hidden in the shadow of the Forbidden Forest.

"Professor…" he said, stumbling over his words in just the manner that Snape had always despised, but for once the man did not seem to mind. "Professor…I should have trusted you."

Severus shook his head. "The plan depended on your utter belief of my betrayal. If the Dark Lord had looked into your mind and seen anything there that caused him to doubt my loyalty all would have been lost. I only regret the pain that such necessity has caused you, and the final outcome of your battle. Know that this is not what I would have chosen."

"Severus," said Lily. "You have changed."

Severus nodded once in affirmation of this statement. He had changed, though it had taken his death for him to fully appreciate how much. Perhaps it was simply that one saw things differently from this side of the veil, but the haze of anger and darkness in which he had lived so much of his life had lifted from his vision. He was now able to embrace what he had never fully been able to admit in life. Although he would always disagree with him on many things, Dumbledore had been right about the power of love. In a way it really was stronger than any force that opposed it. Severus still didn't believe that it could change the world like Albus had professed, but it could change how one saw the world, and maybe that was almost as important. And it had been strong enough to keep its hold on Severus through his service to the Dark Lord and nearly seventeen years after Lily's death. Strong enough to unlock a heart he had barely been aware of still possessing and somehow find a place in it for a boy who was almost as lonely, abused, and neglected as he himself had been. For Severus had grown to love Harry, to love him as much as he had ever loved Lily, to think of him as akin to his own son. He did not regret the years he had spent teaching and protecting him, or the life he had given for him, because it was a life that would have meant nothing to him had Harry not been in it. Even the pain of Harry's renewed hatred for him had vanished, now that he saw his own love finally reflected back at him out of those emerald eyes. He only wished he could have done more, could have prevented what was about to happen, instead of being one of the cogs in the machine that had set it in motion.

"It wasn't your fault," said Harry, although until this moment he had still blamed his former teacher for abandoning him.

"Neither was it yours," said Severus. "There are some things over which we have no control, and some choices we do not realize we have made until it is too late." He glanced briefly at Lily. "I could not have asked for a better student than you, Harry. Nor a better teacher."

Harry felt his throat constrict. He wanted nothing more than to throw his arms around his professor, and to hell with both of their dignity, but that was beyond them now. Instead he said, "I missed you. All of you."

"We missed you too," said James.

"Every day," said Lily.

"You'll stay with me?" asked Harry

"Until the very end," promised Remus.

"They won't be able to see you?"

"We are a part of you," said Sirius. "Invisible to everyone else.

Harry looked around once more and the semi-circle of loving faces surrounding him; they would not force him to do anything, this he knew, but they had laid down their lives in order to get him to this point; he would no dishonor their memory by turning back now.

Harry's eyes came to rest on Severus last. The face which had held so much bitterness and pain in life seemed to have found in death some modicum of peace. Harry would never know just how that had come about, but he found he did not need to. It was enough that it had.

"Stay close to me," Harry said quietly, and set off into the forest.

**AN: There. I hope that makes those of you who were upset that I still had Severus die slightly happier. Whatever your thoughts, please tell them to me in a review!**

**-SQ**


	19. Chapter 19: Death

**Author's Note: I am so sorry for the unannounced hiatus. The last 2 months of school just got so crazy that I made a decision to put fanfic on hold until term was over. Then I came home and launched immediately into working/finding work. And of course going so long without writing means that getting my brain back into it was rather slow going. Know that I am trying my best.**

**-SQ**

**Disclaimer: I'm making money this summer, but not **_**that**_** much money**

**Chapter Nineteen: Death…**

Harry barely noticed the dementors, shielded as he was by his ghostly companions and focused so single-mindedly upon his goal. Harry did not have the faintest idea where inside the forest Lord Voldemort lay in wait for him, but neither did he have the faintest doubt that he would find him. After all, Voldemort wanted him to come.

Severus kept his dark eyes trained on the young man in front of him. Harry had grown up over this past year; he was no longer the boy Severus had protected and taught during hia days at Hogwarts. Harry's resemblance to his father no longer bothered Severus; in truth, he no longer thought of him in terms of either of his parents. Certainly there were elements of them there, but Severus could see traces of many other influences over the course of the boy's short life, including, Severus rather fancied, a bit of himself. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. Above all, however, Harry was Harry, and it killed Severus all over again to have to watch his young life be cut so brutally and unjustly short. _And I thought I had accepted the fact that life wasn't fair._

With every step he took, Harry felt more akin the dead surrounding him and less like the living he had left behind in the castle. Suddenly Harry stopped, and his parents, Lupin, Sirius, and Severus stopped with him. Someone else was in the forest near them, hidden by the thick walls of trees. Out of sight, a voice spoke.

"Someone there. He's got an Invisibility Cloak. Could it be—?"

The speaker stepped from behind a tree. It was Dolohov, followed closely by Yaxley.

"Definitely heard something," said Yaxley, looking rather nervous as he peered into the darkness where Harry and the others stood. "Animal, d'you reckon?"

Severus stared with impassive distain at the men who had once been his comrades. He almost wished they could see him; they would be rather more than a bit nervous then.

Dolohov glanced over his shoulder, his eyes passing directly over Severus without seeing him. "That head case Hagrid kept a whole bunch of stuff in here."

Distantly Harry acknowledged that this comment would have once made him upset, but now he felt far too detached for such a strong emotion.

Seeming to shake of his unease, or perhaps in an effort to cover it up, Yaxley checked his watch and said gruffly, "Time's nearly up. Potter's had his hour. He's not coming." He didn't sound surprised.

"And he was sure he would come!" said Dolohov. "He won't be happy."

"Better go back," advised Yaxley. "Find out what the plan is now."

Harry followed Yaxley and Dolohov back through the trees and Severus followed him. It felt odd, hovering here between this world and the next, but not, he would assume, as odd as it felt for Lily and James and Black, all of whom had been dead for a considerably longer amount of time than he and Lupin had.

It took less time than Harry and Severus had expected to arrive in a clearing filled with silent Death Eaters lit eerily by the flickering glow of a red and orange fire. Harry recognized the place as the former home of the late Acromantula Aragog. In addition to the gathered Death Eaters, both masked and unmasked, Harry and Severus noted two cruel-looking giants seated on the periphery of the clearing and, just beyond them, the shadowy figure of Fenrir Greybackm lurking just outside of the firelight. Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy were also there, looking scared and completely out of their depth, much like their son had often looked over these past two years. They were the closest people Severus had had to friends among the Death Eatersm and he hoped that they got out of this alive; Draco didn't deserve to lose his parents, and Severus was sick of death.

At the sound of Dolohov and Yaxley's return, Voldemort looked up from his meditative pose.

"No sign of him, my Lord." There was a tremble in Dolohov's voice, as though he suspected to be held personally responsible for Harry's failure to appear. Which, knowing the Dark Lord, Severus knew was all too feasible. He couldn't be bothered to spare much pity.

"My Lord," started Bellatrix. Such impudence from another one of his servants would have elicited a sharp rebuke, perhaps accompanied by a little magical reinforcement to make sure the lesson stuck, but the Dark Lord merely raised his hand and Bellatrix fell silent.

Voldemort spoke in the high, cold voice both Harry and Severus loathed so much. "I thought he would come." His gaze bore into the flames licking the pile of wood in front of him. "I expected him to come."

Harry's throat was dry and his palms damp, his heart hammering in his chest as though trying to escape. His fear was so palpable that Severus could feel it, although that may have been the connection they had through the resurrection stone. He wished he could do something, that the boy didn't have to do this at all, but the most he could do was make sure he didn't have to do it alone. He watched as Harry shrugged off the Invisibility Cloak and tucked it underneath his robes. If there was one thing Severus could say for the boy, he certainly wasn't a coward.

"I was," said Voldemort slowly, his eyes still fixed on the flickering, blood-red flames, "it seems, mistaken."

"You weren't," said Harry loudly, so that his voice did not shake.

Voldemort's head snapped up and his red eyes met Harry's. The resurrection stone slipped from Harry's sweaty fingers and landed on the earthen forest floor. His deceased companions vanished. He and Voldemort were alone.

Well, not really.

"Aaahh!"

"Whoop!"

"Dammit!"

"He came!"

"Well, I'll be stupefied!"

"You owe me five galleons!"

"HARRY! NO! NO! NO! HARRY, WHAT'RE YEH—?"

"QUIET!"

There was silence and stillness in the clearing once more.

It seemed to take Voldemort an eternity to speak, and when he did his voice barely carried above the crackling of the flames. "Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived."

_Not anymore_, thought Harry. His last thoughts were of Ginny's fiery red hair and Snape's impenetrable black eyes. Then his vision filled with the green light of Voldemort's killing curse.

*****CTU*****

After an incalculable amount of time a thought occurred to Harry, followed by another. The first was that he had never experienced such profound silence before. The second was that he has just had a thought, and so in some way must still exist. Soon after that, or perhaps it wasn't soon at all, it was impossible to tell, Harry realized that he was lying on some sort of smooth surface, which meant he must have a physical existence as well a mental one, and that wherever he was, it was somewhere. Not a very specific observation, true, but it was a start.

The next things Harry discovered were his lack of clothing and his possession of eyes, and therefore vision, soon followed by his ability to sit up. He was surrounded by a kind of white mist. Slowly his surroundings made themselves more apparent; robes appeared for him to dress in roof coalesced above his head, and a floor beneath his feet. It suddenly struck him that the place he found himself in, if a place it was in truth, greatly resembled King's Cross Station in London.

And suddenly Harry had the distinct sensation that he was not alone. He whirled around and his eyes fell upon what appeared to be a child, but if it was, it was the strangest, most repulsive child Harry had ever seen. It was naked and appeared to be nearly skinless. It frightened Harry inexplicably, but also evoked a strong feeling of pity within him, so that he wished to reach out to it but could not bring himself to do so.

"You cannot help."

Harry whirled around once more and found himself face-to-face with Albus Dumbledore.

"Harry," said Dumbledore, and Harry stared at him, dumbfounded. "You wonderful boy. You brave, brave man. Let us walk.

And so they did, until they arrived at a pair of seats and sat down. Harry could not take his eyes off of his former headmaster's face.

"But you're dead," he finally blurted, proving that he had a voice box in addition to a body and eyes and lungs.

"Oh yes."

"Then…I'm dead too?" It made sense, he supposed, as much as anything, though this wasn't exactly how he would have imagined death if he had taken the time to do so.

But Dumbledore apparently had a different opinion.

"Not?" questioned Harry. "But…But I should have died—I didn't defend myself! I meant to let him kill me!" Now he was beginning to become distraught. If he wasn't dead, then the plan had failed and Voldemort still could not be killed.

Dumbledore, however, did not seem to share his concerns and, since the whole thing had been his idea from the start, Harry felt within his rights to demand an explanation.

And so Dumbledore explained: the destruction of the part of Voldemort's soul that had been inside of Harry, the further connection Voldemort had drawn between them by taking Harry's blood, and the overwhelming power of love, loyalty, and innocence. He even gave his theory on the odd behavior of Harry's wand.

And speaking of wands…

"The Deathly Hallows."

"Ah yes."

And so Dumbledore explained his own quest to conquer death, his and Gellert Grindlewald's, and how that had eventually tied in with Voldemort's own search.

"He believes that the Elder Wand removes his last weakness and makes him truly invincible."

"If you planned your death with Snape, you meant him to end up with the Elder Wand, didn't you?"

"I admit that was my intention," said Dumbledore, "but it did not work as I intended, did it?"

"No," said Harry, and he could not keep an edge of bitterness out of his voice. "Snape is dead."

"Yes," said Dumbledore, and he sounded so tired and sad that the anger seeped out of Harry, "he is."

"I got to see him," said Harry at last, after several minutes of silence. "I got to see all of them before I di—came here."

"With the Resurrection Stone."

It wasn't really a question, but Harry nodded anyway.

There was another long silence.

"Well…I suppose…I've got to go back, haven't I?" said Harry at last.

"That is up to you," replied Dumbledore.

Harry looked at him; he didn't know he had a choice.

"If I go on," asked Harry slowly," will I see them again? My parents and Remus and Sirius and Snape? Will I be with them?"

"That I cannot tell you."

"And if I go back?"

"I am afraid only you can decide that."

Harry listened to the rest of what Dumbledore said, but in truth he had already made up his mind. Part of him wanted nothing more than to go on and leave the exhaustion of lving behind him, to be reunited with the ones he had lost, but the dead were already dead, the living still in danger of becoming so. If Snape and the others were waiting for him at the end of the proverbial line, he wanted to have done everything he could to make them proud by the time he got there.

Harry stood and braced himself for reality once more, and that thought had him asking one last question. "Professor, is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?"

Dumbledore's radiant smile faded away into the mist, but his voice was still quite clear as he replied, in true ambiguous Dumbledore fashion (honestly, at least when Snape had chosen to give him answers they had been straight and to-the-point ones), "Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"

**AN: I know some of you wanted to see Severus in that seen with/instead of Dumbledore, and I did consider it, but I found that Severus had already said what he needed to say to Harry, he was ready to move on. Dumbledore had information to impart to Harry that only he knew before he would be ready to go on.**

**My birthday is on Sunday, so reviews would be a lovely birthday present :)**

**-SQ**


	20. Chapter 20: and its Master

**Author's Note: I meant to get this done a week ago, which would still have been kind of a long time, I know, but life. Anyway, I was more than halfway done with the chapter, then my screen broke out of the blue X/ I got it back just in time to fly to Mexico to visit a friend, but I finally managed to get the chapter finished today, so here it is, nice and long.**

**-SQ**

**Disclaimer: No matter how I say it, it still means the same thing**

**Chapter Twenty: …and its Master**

Finding himself once more face down on a hard surface, Harry had a momentary wave of déjà vu before his other senses kicked in. The smell of growing wood filled his nostrils, and he could taste gritty earth on his tongue; he was back in the Forbidden Forest. The ground beneath his cheek vibrated with hurried footsteps and the air above him hissed with unintelligible whispers. Harry remained still, unsure of how to proceed, seeing as he was supposed to be dead. Unwilling to move and so give himself away so soon, Harry took inventory as best he could from his current position. Around him he could still hear the Death Eaters murmuring in hushed voices, though the only one he could identify and make out clearly was Bellatrix's. He could feel both his wand and the Invisibility Cloak inside his robes, for all the good they did him right now.

Voldemort spoke, and the muttering and whispering fell silent. Now the footsteps went in reverse, moving their owners away from Harry and Voldemort. It seemed as though when Harry had fallen to Voldemort's Killing Curse, Voldemort too had lost consciousness and was just now coming to.

Voldemort rose to his feet, refusing Bellatrix's offer of assistance. There was a pause, in which Harry imagined Voldemort adjusting his robes, and then he said, in a voice not quite up to his usual caliber of chilling authority, "The boy…is he dead?"

Silence. Harry did his best not to breathe.

"You," said Voldemort. He did not raise his voice, but the person he had addressed, or Harry assumed that was who it was, yelped. "Examine him. Tell me whether he is dead."

Harry felt someone approach him and bend down to his level.

_Uh-oh._

Harry felt the person, a woman, begin to examine him. He wondered why she bothered to prolong the process when it was obvious that he still had a pulse. But prolong it she did, checking him over quite thoroughly before, to Harry's utter surprise, bending even closer to him and breathing into his ear, "Is Draco alive? Is he in the castle?"

Harry almost nodded, then caught himself and whispered, even more quietly than Narcissa had, "Yes."

She was gone from his side before he had inhaled.

"He is dead!"

The clearing erupted into cheers and shouts and stamps of victory. Harry even thought he could see miniature fireworks erupting from some of the Death Eaters' wands.

Harry lay limp and lifeless through it all, even when his body was lifted into the air and tossed about for sport, even as he was lifted gently into a stooped and weeping Hagrid's arms and carried back toward the castle. As much as Harry loved his over-sized friend, he did not dare reveal to him his still-living status for fear that the half-giant's reaction would give him away.

When they came to a (rather jarring) halt, Harry assumed they must have cleared the forest, though he dared not risk opening his eyes to see.

His guess was soon confirmed, in any case, by Voldemort, who began to address the Hogwarts grounds at large. "Harry Potter is dead. He was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself while you lay down your lives for him…"

Harry was beyond caring about the bald-faced nature of this lie, nor did he worry about his friends bending knee to Voldemort. He could not play dead forever, nor did he want to. He merely hoped to buy enough time to stop the slaughter Voldemort promised those who did not obey him.

Hagrid, Voldemort, and the Death Eaters now approached the castle, arranging themselves so that all those who exited through the main doors would have a prime view of their apparently deceased and allegedly cowardly hero.

They did not have long to wait. Pain worse than that which any curse could inflict on him tore through Harry as the voices of those still among the living whom he care most about cried out in horror and despair. A swell of pride rose up in his chest, however, when he heard how they responded to Voldemort's gloating offer, in spite of their grief. It seemed as though Voldemort's silencing charms were no match for the combined forces of the Aurors, Order members, and other Hogwarts staff, faculty, students, and assorted family and friends.

"He beat you!"

"I'll join you when hell freezes over! Dumbledore's Army!"

Voldemort proceeded to outline his grim and gloomy plans for Hogwarts and Wizarding Britain at large, though it didn't seem as though the crowd was paying very much attention. Finally he seemed to decide that a demonstration was necessary to cow his audience, and proceeded to functionally set Neville's head on fire. Before Harry could react, however, the lawn erupted into a hitherto unreached level of chaos.

Centaurs, Grawp, Death Eaters, Voldemort, Order members, Aurors, DA members, Hagrid, Nagini, Neville with Gryffindor's sword (Merlin knew where he had gotten that), Thestrals, Buckbeak, the house elves of Hogwarts led by none other than Kreacher…

Amidst the commotion, Harry managed to roll out of Hagrid's arms and don his invisibility cloak, nearly getting trampled in the process. Unseen, he joined the ranks of defenders, shielding as many of his side as he could and firing spells at any Death Eater he could get a clear shot at, all the while making his way as quickly as possible toward the Great Hall and Voldemort.

The Great Hall was filled with Harry's friends, and for a moment he was torn between which group of fighters to help. It became clear almost immediately, however, that the others were more than capable of holding their own against the Death Eaters, and Harry turned his attention back to Voldemort. Harry clearly remembered seeing Neville decapitate Nagini with the ruby-pommeled sword of Gryffindor, and according to Dumbledore, Voldemort himself had exterminated the piece of his soul that had resided in Harry, so now the Dark Lord could be killed like any other mortal man. Albeit a very skilled and lethal one.

Enough was enough. Harry was never going to get anywhere near Voldemort with this hubbub roaring on around him. He was far more likely to hit friend than foe in the midst of the madness. It had to be stopped before anyone else wound up killed for his sake.

"_Protego!"_

The immediate effect of Harry's reveal was the volume rising several decibel levels with exclamations about Harry's sudden, very much living, appearance. This was followed almost immediately, however, by a profound and uneasy silence.

Slowly, the two of them began to move within the dome of Harry's Shield Charm, never taking their eyes off one another.

"I don't want anyone else to help," said Harry sharply, catching movement out of the corner of his eye. "It's got to be like this. It's got to be me."

Voldemort didn't like that proclamation in the least, quickly refuting in with more of his slimy lies which had ceased to have any effect whatsoever on Harry. In fact, they proved that Voldemort was shaken, which rather pleased Harry. Plus, for once, he knew more than anyone else present. More than anyone else living. It was a feeling, he imagined, akin to being high.

"I know things you don't know, Tom Riddle," said Harry, keeping his voice at an almost detached level of indifference that betrayed nothing of what was going on in his mind; a trick he had learned from Snape. "I know lots of important things that you don't. Want to hear some, before you make another big mistake?"

That caught the Dark Lord's attention, although he feigned scornful indifference. Harry almost pitied it, Voldemort's complete inability to understand love. It was the love he felt, for and from, his family and friends, both living and dead, which gave Harry the strength to stand here now and speak calmly to the man who had been trying to kill him since before he was born. It was that love that had protected him, and which continued to protect him, from death, and it was that love which now protected the rest of the fighters on his side from Voldemort's spells. Harry's mother had died to save him when he was a baby, as had Snape, mere hours before. Harry had had every intention of dying to save the Wizarding World, essentially providing the resistance with the same protection with which his mother and Snape had provided him.

"You think _you_ know more magic than I do?" said Voldemort with a horrible, screeching laugh. "Than _I_, than Lord Voldemort, who has performed magic that Dumbledore himself never dreamed of?"

"Oh, he dreamed of it," said Harry, his voice still level, though his heart raced with the adrenaline coursing through his veins. "I think we all dream of it, at some time or another, but he knew more than you, enough not to do what you've done."

"You mean he was weak! Too weak to dare, too weak to take what might have been his, what will be mine!"

"No," said Harry his voice almost a growl. Insults to himself he didn't mind, but he wasn't about to let Snape and Dumbledore's memories be sullied. "My mentors were neither weak nor cowardly, though I sometimes wrongly accused them of being so. But they were cleverer than me, and cleverer than you. Better wizards, better men."

"I brought about the death of Albus Dumbledore!" howled Voldemort.

"You thought you did," said Harry, his voice bland again, "but you were wrong."

This time the ripple of reaction went not just through Voldemort, but around the entire Great Hall.

Voldemort's next words were obviously intended to cause Harry great pain. "_Dumbledore is dead!_ His body decays in the marble tomb in the grounds of this castle; I have seen it, Potter. Albus Dumbledore was not infallible and he will not return!"

"Yes," Harry acknowledged, his tone conversational, almost genial, "but you didn't have him killed. He, unlike you, accepted the inevitability of death and so chose his own manner of dying. You are right when you say that he was not infallible; but when he made mistakes, he acknowledged them."

"He still died!"

"Yes, you said that. And he arranged the whole thing with the man you thought was your servant."

Confusion and uncertainty flashed through Voldemort's crimson eyes even as he derided Harry's words as a childish dream.

"Did you not hear me when I told you that my mentors were not weak or cowardly?" said Harry, trying his hand and Snape's favorite condescending tone and finding that he wasn't as shabby at it as he would have thought. "Mentors, Tom, plural. Albus Dumbledore. And Severus Snape."

The room was deadly silent. Voldemort's crimson eyes flashed once again, this time in denial.

"Severus Snape wasn't yours," Harry continued; it felt unbelievably good to say the words aloud, to verify to himself that they were really true. "Snape was Dumbledore's, and mine. Dumbledore' from the moment you started hunting my mother, mine from the day he nursed me through the illness that threatened my life in my third year. Something else that escaped your attention while you were, ah, _indisposed_, I'm sure. And you never realized it, because of the thing you can't understand. You never saw Snape cast a Patronus, did you, Riddle?"

The silence was heavy on Harry's ears, the only sound the soft swish of his and Voldemort's robes as they continued to circle each other.

"You've seen mine, right Riddle? Let me refresh your memory. _Expecto Patronum!_" The silvery stag burst out of the wand in Harry's hand and galloped once around the figures at the center of the Great Hall, its rollicking gait at odds with the tense atmosphere of the room.

"My Patronus is a stag," said Harry, unnecessarily, as the beast in question faded from sight. "Snape's was a doe, the same as my mother's, because he loved her for nearly all of his life, from the time when they were children. It took me longer than it should have to see the depth of his feelings for her, but you should have realized; he asked you to spare her life, didn't he?"

Voldemort's response was derisive. "He desired her, that was all, but when she had gone, he agreed that there were other women, and of purer blood, worthier of him—"

Harry cut him off, unwilling to hear his mother's or Snape's memories besmirched in this manner. "Of course he told you that, but he was Dumbledore's spy from the moment you threatened her, and he's been working against you ever since!" Harry took a deep breath and steadied his voice. "But that's only half of it. For thirteen years, Snape served as Dumbledore's spy to try to make up in some small way for the crimes he had committed while serving your cause, and for the last two-and-a-half of those years, he grudgingly watched over me while I was at Hogwarts, even saving my life when Professor Quirrell tried to kill me on your orders, even though we hated each other, because of the love he had born my mother.

"Halfway through my third year, that relationship changed. Snape and I found we had a lot more in common than we had previously thought. He began to care for me, and I for him. For more than three years Snape was more than my teacher, more than my mentor even; he was like a father to me, and you never knew, although you were growing in power all the while. Snape was, by the way, one hell of an Occlumens. And he continued to watch over me, despite the great personal risk, after he sacrificed our relationship by killing Dumbledore and seemingly betraying the Order, _on Dumbledore's orders_. Dumbledore was already dying when Snape finished him, and although Snape felt he had lost everything when you killed my mother, and then had to give up what he had rediscovered in service of the Order, he had a chance to experience happiness and love again before you ended his life as well!"

Voldemort had listened to every word Harry had spoken with the utmost attention, but now he let out a mad cackle and shouted, "It matters not! It matters not whether Snape was mine or Dumbledore's, whether he loved you and your mother, or what petty obstacles they tried to put in my path! I crushed them as I crushed your mother, Snape's supposed great _love_, and soon I will crush you, so Snape's betrayal has gotten him nowhere! Oh but it all makes sense, Potter, in ways that you do not understand.

"Don't think I was so blind to the old man's schemes as all that. Dumbledore was trying to keep the Elder Wand from me, this I know! He intended that Snape should be the true master of the wand; Snape's compliance with the plan is irrelevant! I got there ahead of you little boy—I reached the wand before you could get your hands on it, I understood the truth before you caught up, or what mattered of it anyway. As you have obviously deduced, I killed Severus Snape three hours ago, and the Elder Wand, the Deathstick, the Wand of Destiny is truly mine! Dumbledore's last plan went wrong, Harry Potter!" Voldemort laughed again, high and ringing and completely insane.

"Yeah, it did," said Harry, unimpressed. "You're right. But before you try to kill me, I'd advise you to think about what you've done… Snape did, and he found peace before the end… Think, and try for some remorse, Riddle…"

Voldemort looked utterly confounded by this turn in the conversation. "What is this?" he demanded, his entire demeanor heavy with shock.

"It is your one last chance," said Harry. He knew that it wouldn't work, no matter how much a small part of him not driven by hurt and anger and revenge wanted it to, but he had to try, if only so he could sleep easier at night with the knowledge that he had. "It's all you've got left… I've seen what you'll be otherwise… Be a man, I know you were once, or a boy at least, a boy not that different from Severus Snape and myself. So try, Tom Riddle… Try for some remorse…"

"You _dare _—?"

"Yes, I dare," said Harry, a tad impatiently. "Because Dumbledore's last plan hasn't backfired on me at all. It's backfired on you, Riddle." Harry paused to let this sink in, then continued, his fingers wrapped firmly around Draco's wand. "That wand still isn't working properly for you because you murdered the wrong person," he said, refusing to let himself feel the sting of the futility of Snape's death just yet; there would be time for grief later, and if Snape hadn't died in the true target's stead, Harry most likely would not have survived to be standing here, for multiple reasons. He sent up another silent thank you to his mentor. "Severus Snape was never the true master of the Elder Wand. He never defeated Dumbledore."

"He killed—"

"Aren't you listening?" snapped Harry, and this time his imitation of Snape was unintentional, though no less true. "_Snape never beat Dumbledore!_ Dumbledore's death was planned between them! Dumbledore intended to die undefeated, the wand's last true master! If all had gone as planned, the wand's power would have died with him because it had never been won from him!" That, though Harry wryly, had been a hell of a lot more difficult to piece together than he made it sound.

A horrifying grin spread over Voldemort's snakelike features. "But then, Potter, Dumbledore as good as gave me the wand!" His eyes were bright with triumph and elation. "I stole the wand from its last master's tomb! I removed it against its last master's wishes! Its power is mine!"

"You still don't get it, Riddle, do you?" Harry wanted Voldemort to understand exactly how the cards had fallen before he died, but it was more than that; he wanted to rest of the wizarding world to know the truth as well. "Possessing the wand isn't enough! Holding it, using it, doesn't make it really yours. Didn't you listen to Ollivander? You spend enough time torturing him. _The wand chooses the wizard…_ The Elder Wand recognized new master before Dumbledore died, someone who ever even laid a hand on it. The new master removed the wand from Dumbledore against his will, never realizing exactly what he had done or that the world's most dangerous wand had given him its allegiance."

_This is it,_ thought Harry, as he felt the curse building inside the Elder Wand that Voldemort was pointing at him. _Oh Merlin, let me be right._ "The true master of the Elder Wand was Draco Malfoy."

For an instant, Voldemort appeared utterly floored, but he just as quickly recovered.

"What does it matter?" he said again. "Even if you are right, Potter, it makes no difference to you and me. You no longer have the phoenix wand: We duel on skill alone…and after I have killed you, I can attend to Draco Malfoy…"

_Over my dead body_, thought Harry. It wasn't that he was any big fan of Malfoy's, but Narcissa Malfoy had saved his life and he, Harry, wasn't the only boy Snape had dedicated himself to protecting.

"But you're too late," said Harry, acting as though he were enjoying this, although in truth all he wanted was for all of it to be over so he could have a good long rest and mourn his dead in peace. "You've missed your chance. I got there first. I overpowered Draco weeks ago. I took this wand—" he held up the wand in his hand—"from him."

For the first time in many minutes, Harry was consciously aware of the other occupants of the Hall; every set of eyes was fixed unerringly upon him.

"So it all comes down to this doesn't it," he said in, it had to be said, a rather dramatic whisper. "Does the wand in your hand know its last master was Disarmed? Because if it does… I am the true master of the Elder Wand."

_Snape would have your hide for risking it on something like this_, thought Harry. _Yeah, well, he'd also have done exactly the same thing in my position, because he was a bloody hypocrite._ For some reason the thought almost made Harry want to smile.

It was not, however, an appropriate moment for smiling.

"_Avada Kedavra!"_

"_Expelliarmus!"_

The two beams of light, red and green, met in the center of the transparent dome, sparks ricocheting from the point of contact. With a jerk like a fish biting down on a line, the Elder Wand tore itself from Voldemort's hand and flew high above both of their heads, descending toward Harry's outstretched hand. Neither of their eyes left the length of wood as Harry's fingers closed around the handle with an innate sense of rightness. Then Voldemort's eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed, almost gracefully, to the floor of the Hall. By the time he hit the floor, felled by his own backfired curse, he was no longer Lord Voldemort, the most feared wizard in living memory, but a shrunken husk of the man who had once been known as Tom Marvolo Riddle.

*****CTU*****

Harry, Ron, and Hermione walked slowly through the empty corridors of Hogwarts Castle. Elation at their victory filled the Great Hall behind them, where the grandest feast Hogwarts had seen in years was still being enjoyed, but after a few cursory mouthfuls of food to satisfy his empty stomach, Harry felt no desire to partake of it. He still felt oddly detached from the rest of them, save Ron and Hermione; the physical, mental, and emotion exertion it had taken to reach this point left him unable to feel anything by exhaustion, the pain of grief and loss, and a profound sense of relief that the whole thing was over. Even Ron and Hermione's company seemed a bit much at the moment, but he owed them a full explanation, and as the one person whose company he would have welcomed would never walk among the living again, he owed it to him to make sure that his story was accurately told.

"Blimey," said Ron, shaking his head. "Snape really was working for Dumbledore all along."

Harry shook his head. "No. He was really working for my mother all along, for her memory, and then I suppose for me for my own sake eventually."

"Still, he was on our side, your side," said Hermione. "He cared about you."

Harry nodded. "Yes. Eventually. And that's how I want him to be remembered. He was far from perfect, he would be the first to acknowledge that, at least privately, but he loved my mother, and he loved me, at the end at least, and he spend the last seventeen years of his life in the difficult, dangerous, and thankless job of keeping me from getting myself killed." There was humor in that sentence, but the death of the man he had only now, posthumously, really come to know was still too fresh for Harry to appreciate it.

"Is it strange?" asked Hermione a bit tentatively. "Knowing that Snape was in love with your mother all this time?"

Harry shrugged. It was a difficult question, and one he hadn't yet had time to consider fully. "Yes and no. It explains a lot of things."

"Not a fact I'd especially want to dwell on, though," said Ron with a shudder. Hermione hit him reproachfully on the shoulder.

The trio reached the base of the staircase leading to the Headmaster's office and, with the ambivalent permission of the rather worse-for-wear gargoyle, ascended.

When Harry opened the door, the room erupted into applause, causing him to start back in fright. Every former Hogwarts headmaster, even Phineas Nigellus Black, whose portrait adorned the wall behind the desk had risen to his or her feet and was bringing their painted hands together as hard as they could.

Harry was barely aware of them. His focus as directed on the center portrait, at the sparkling blue eyes spilling tears into the long silvery beard, from behind which shone obvious gratitude and pride. The pain in Harry's chest didn't vanish, but it did diminish. He took a breath.

"Professor Dumbledore, Professor Snape—"

"I know," interrupted Dumbledore gently.

"I didn't know he—"

"You weren't supposed to, Harry."

Harry sighed. "I know that. He told me."

"You were able to open the Snitch, then." Dumbledore didn't sound at all surprised.

Harry nodded.

"Harry," said Dumbledore, "do you remember what I told you once? Do not pity the dead, pity the living. And above all—"

"—pity those who live without love, yes Professor, I know."

"Severus did not live without love, Harry," said Dumbledore. "Nor, I think," he added with a twinkle in his eye, "did he die without it."

Harry shook his head. "No, sir."

"Good. I take it you will make sure that his portrait is granted its rightful place alongside the rest of us?"

"Won't it anyway, professor?" asked Ron rather awkwardly, not being nearly as accustomed to conversing with deceased headmasters as Harry had become. "He was Headmaster of Hogwarts."

"Not if they write his term off as an illegitimate part of Voldemort's take over," said Hermione.

"I won't let that happen," said Harry decidedly.

"Of course you won't," said Dumbledore approvingly.

Harry suddenly remembered something. "Professor Dumbledore," he said, choosing his words with care, "speaking of the Snitch, I dropped the thing that was hidden in it in the forest. I don't know exactly where, but I'm not going to go looking for it again. Do you agree?"

"My dear boy, I do," said Dumbledore, and Harry thought he sensed a note of relief in his former headmaster's voice. "A wise and courageous decision, but no less than I would have expected of you. Does anyone else know where it fell?"

"No one," said Harry. "Well, no one alive, at least."

The older wizard smiled.

Dumbledore also readily agreed with Harry's choice to keep the Invisibility Cloak in his possession, since it was rightfully his as a decedent of Ignotus Peverell, and to keep his newly repaired phoenix feather wand and return the Elder Wand to Dumbledore's tomb. Although he could not ask him yet, and would not be able to, it would turn out, until after he had slogged through several months' worth of diplomatic nonsense, Harry was sure that Snape would have approved of Harry's decisions as well. After all, the ex-potions master had been forever telling Harry to stay out of trouble, and the Hallows were a lot more trouble than they were worth, it seemed to Harry, an opinion that was only reinforced when he saw the way that his friends looked at the wand. Even Dumbledore hadn't been immune to the draw of the Deathstick's power, nor, Harry was certain, would Snape have been if it had actually fallen into his possession. Probably the reason, Harry reflected, that Dumbledore's intended plan had _not_ been to pass control of the wand to Severus. To Harry, however, it would forever be a reminder of everything he had lost, and he had no desire to keep such an object close to his person, never mind make use of it on a regular basis.

Harry turned away from the portraits on the wall and in the direction of Gryffindor Tower. And for once both Hermione and Ron had the tact to let him find his way to his bed in peace.

**AN: And that is the final chapter. But don't worry, there will be an epilogue. I appreciate your comments :)**

**-SQ**


	21. Epilogue: Nineteen Years Later

**Author's Note: Sorry this took a bit. I had to leave my copy of DH at home, so I had to find another copy to use. I put the ebook on hold at the library, but luckily my study abroad program's office had a copy, so I didn't have to wait as long.**

**-SQ**

**Disclaimer: I don't even own the copy of the book I used to write this chapter.**

**Epilogue: Nineteen Years Later**

"I want to go _now_!"

"Patience is a virtue, Lily," said the small red-headed girl's equally red-headed mother, somewhat tiredly, as she attempted to keep her daughter from tugging her father's arm out of its socket while simultaneously breaking up her two arguing sons. "James and Albus had to wait just as long as you do."

Harry chuckled, reminded of the first time he had seen the woman who was now his wife, at this very train station, twenty-five years previously to the day.

"It isn't _funny_," said Albus plaintively. "And I _won't_ be in Slytherin!"

"I wasn't laughing at you," said Harry quickly. "James, leave your brother alone," he added, at the same moment that Ginny snapped, "James, give it a rest!"

"I only said he _might_ be," said the oldest Potter child, grinning rakishly under his untidy red-brown hair. "There's nothing wrong with that. He _might_ be in Slytherin. Anyone _might _be in Slyth—"

"Go," said his mother, cutting him off with a push toward the barrier between platforms nine and ten.

James winked at his little brother and ran at the wall, disappearing through it an instant later.

Ginny indicated for Albus to follow him, but the younger boy hung back. "You'll write to me, won't you?" he asked for the fifth time since the beginning of the summer. "You won't forget?"

"How could we forget about you?" said Harry, ruffling his son's black locks fondly.

"We'll write you every day if you want us to," added Ginny.

"Not _every _day," said Albus quickly, and Harry sensed James' handiwork. Sure enough, "James says most people only get letters from home about once a month."

Ginny snorted. "We wrote to James three times a week last year."

"And you don't want to believe everything he tells you about Hogwarts," said Harry. "He likes a laugh, your brother." Privately Harry wondered whether it wouldn't be better for Albus not to be sorted into Gryffindor, if only to avoid constantly being the target of James' questionable sense of humor.

The four remaining Potters advanced through the barrier and onto Platform nine and three-quarters. The Hogwarts express was already there, filling the platform with clouds of thick white steam that made the crowd gathered there seem more like ghosts than flesh and blood people.

Albus rose onto his tiptoes and peered around anxiously, hoping to catch a glimpse, Harry knew, of his best friend and cousin, Rose, who was also starting her first year at Hogwarts.

Ginny was the first to spot Ron, Hermione, and their two children, and Harry, Ginny, Albus, and Lily made their way toward them through the throng of students and family members.

Predictably, the youngsters' conversation immediately turned to the imminent Sorting Ceremony.

"If you're not in Gryffindor, we'll disinherit you," said Ron to his son Hugo, who was the same age as Lily, "but no pressure."

"_Ron!"_ said Hermione, not at all amused. Harry, who usually sided with Ron in his jokes, was also less than inclined to laugh when he saw the looks on his son's and niece's faces. He remembered how nerve-wracking his own Sorting had been at the age of eleven, and he hadn't grown in a family of wizards, for whom which house you had been in at Hogwarts was often a defining characteristic. Harry didn't necessarily agree with this view, and he had known people from all four houses during his time at Hogwarts for whom he would have given his life, and about whom he really didn't give two figs.

Speaking of…

"Look who it is," said Ron, nodding toward the center section of the train.

Another family was there to see their son off to his first year at Hogwarts; Draco and Astoria Malfoy, nee Greengrass. Harry and Draco made eye contact and nodded at each other. Their relationship was…complicated. Enemies all throughout their school days, the two were nevertheless united through shared experiences and mentorship from the late Severus Snape, former head of Slytherin House and, briefly, headmaster of Hogwarts.

Ron, of course, was already encouraging his daughter to competitiveness against the young Malfoy, but Harry couldn't help but wonder what would happen if his and Draco's sons were to become friends. He knew very well what Lucius Malfoy's reaction to that would be, but the elder Malfoy fell into the category of people he couldn't be bothered to give the time of day to. Snape, on the other hand, Harry rather fancied would enjoy the irony of the hypothetical friendship.

Harry was pulled out of his musings by James' sudden reappearance. It seemed that Teddy Lupin, Harry's godson and practically an older brother to his own children, was apparently snogging Victoire Weasley, the oldest Weasley cousin, at the front of the train.

"Oh, it would be lovely if they got married!" said Lily in a dreamy, romantic voice that made Hugo make a face and pretend to vomit. "Teddy would _really_ be part of the family then!"

"He already comes round for dinner about four times a week," chuckled Harry. "Why don't we just invite him to live with us and have done with it?"

"Yeah!" said James enthusiastically. "I don't mind sharing with Al—Teddy could have my room!"

"No," said Harry and Ginny at the same time.

"You and Al will share a room when I want the house demolished," said Harry. His two sons loved each other, but they fought like two wet cats in a sack more often than not. In reality Albus got along much better with his younger sister, for all that there was a two-year age difference.

"It's nearly eleven," said Harry, checking his watch, "you'd better get on board."

"Don't forget to give Neville our love!" said Ginny, grabbing a protesting James in a hug.

"Mum!" said James, struggling to free himself. "I can't give a professor _love_!"

"But you _know_ Neville—"

"Outside, yeah, but at school he's Professor Longbottom, isn't he? I can't walk into Herbology and give him _love_…"

Harry chuckled at his son's dramatics and added, "And say hello to Professors Dumbledore and Snape for me next time you're in the headmaster's office, eh?"

"Harry," admonished Ginny, "don't encourage him! The number of letters we got last year alone…"

Harry intercepted a kick James aimed in Albus's direction as he hopped onboard the train and reassured his middle child that the thestrals were nothing at all to worry about.

"Bye, Al," said Harry, using his son's common nickname as his mother kissed him. "Don't forget Hagrid's invited you to tea next Friday. Don't mess with Peeves. Don't duel anyone until you've learned how. Try to avoid being sent the headmaster's office, but if you do end up there, make sure to say hello to Professor Dumbledore and Professor Snape. And don't worry if Severus doesn't seem to like you; he kind of gives that impression to everyone. And don't let James wind you up."

"What if I'm in Slytherin?" asked Albus quietly, ashamedly.

Harry crouched down on level with his son, so that their matching sets of green eyes were parallel with each other. "Albus Severus, you were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts. One was a Slytherin who was brilliant, resourceful, capable of love as strong as anyone I have ever met, and probably the bravest man I ever knew. More than that, he was like a father to me."

"But _just say_—"

"—then Slytherin House will have gained another excellent student, won't it? And I will be very proud to have my son representing it. It doesn't matter to us, Al, whether you are in Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, or Hufflepuff. But if it really matters to you, you'll be able to choose one over another. The Sorting Hat takes your choice into account."

"Really?" said Albus, his green eyes going wide with surprise.

"It did for me," said Harry. "Regardless, whichever house you are in will be the right one for you." Harry wasn't one hundred percent certain that this was true; something Dumbledore had said about Snape came back to him, that he wondered if they didn't sort too soon, but he figured the reassurance was more important that the technicalities at the moment. And he didn't doubt for a moment that Gryffindor had been the right choice for him, not so much because of the qualities of the house, but because of the friends and family he had found there. Then again, he had found something very much like family in Slytherin house too, so you never knew.

"If you _are_ in Slytherin," he added, "then you have to get yourself sent to the headmaster's office at least once, and make sure you tell me about the look on Severus's face when he hears where the Sorting Hat put you."

This elicited a small grin from Albus, and Harry knew that, whichever house he ended up in, his youngest son would be alright.

The whistle blew and Harry watched Albus board the train with his cousin. The wheels began to turn, and Harry jogged alongside the train as it pulled away from the station, waving all the while. When the scarlet steam engine disappeared from view around the bed, Harry let his hand fall. It was enveloped by that of his wife. He smiled at her, though it was a half-sad sort of smile. Ginny squeezed his hand, acknowledging the mixed emotions involved in sending off their second child to Hogwarts for the first time.

"He'll be alright," said Ginny softly, echoing Harry's own thoughts.

Harry thought about what was in store for Albus; the feasts, the classes, the homework the ghosts, the moving staircases and confusing corridors, the Quidditch games, the portraits, and all the rest, and nodded. His son was several notches higher on the 'alright' spectrum than Harry had been at his age.

"I know he will."

Harry had a loving wife, three beautiful children, and a wealth of memories in which the good outweighed the bad behind his lightning-shaped scar, which had not pained him for nineteen years. All was well.

**AN: Thank you all so much for accompanying me on this wonderful journey. The 'Coming to' series had now officially **_**come to**_** an end ;) I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it and reading your responses.**

**-SQ**


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